Karima Delli MEP (Greens/EFA, France), the rapporteur for the opinion on the draft European regulation on the approval and market monitoring of motor vehicles, is continuing to support the idea of setting up an independent European agency to ensure market monitoring. During the examination of the amendments at the transport and tourism committee at the European Parliament on Tuesday 11 October, she spoke about this subject again, which continues to divide MEPs.
"We have to take action and not back-track, as was the case with the IMCO report (Internal Market and Consumer Protection)", Delli said, referring to the report by Daniel Dalton (ECR, United Kingdom), which provoked heated controversy due to its proposals in favour of maintaining the status quo (see EUROPE 11635). Delli said that it is necessary to draw inspiration from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the fact that this kind of agency would not have an impact on European taxpayers.
The proposal was immediately ridiculed by Werner Kuhn (EPP, Germany, according to whom, such an option would be a “hysterical reaction”. As an alternative, Kuhn supported the creation of an exchange platform between the national authorities, as proposed by the European Commission (see EUROPE 11476). Speaking on behalf of the S&D, Maria Grapini (Romania) did not appear to reject the proposal from Delli. She does, however, consider that it is premature to consider any plans on this option. One of her concerns is reportedly that the debates would be interminably long between the member states regarding the question of where the agency would be based.
One of the MEPs who spoke most keenly in favour of the project was Merja Kyllönen (GUE/NGL, Finland) and Dominique Riquet (ALDE, France). According to Riquet, the argument about cost does not hold water, given the colossal amounts generated by the recall of vehicles and, in the case of Volkswagen, the US fine that has now reached a sum of around $15 billion.
During the debate, the European Commission unsurprisingly argued against this project in favour of setting up an agency, due to the amount of time it would take to set up. The Commission considers that the most important challenge is to move forward more quickly. At a more general level, the Commission says that it is concerned by the way in which the amendments were organised and the fact that if they were adopted as they stood, it would be counter-productive and fail to strengthen market monitoring.
Joint Research Centre’s point of view
During a press visit to the Joint Research Centre (the EU’s scientific and technical research laboratory) in Ispra on 7 October, Giovanni De Santi, the former head of the institute in charge of energy and transport, informed a small group of journalists that the best solution would have been to set up this kind of agency but that "we have to be realistic, the member states would never accept" this kind of body. Nonetheless, he did consider that a forum of national authorities would allow for enhanced data exchange and good practices, as well as greater transparency.
JRC experts indicated that new competencies allocated to them as part of the Commission proposal (subject to the condition that it is adopted and maintained in its initial form) would not require exorbitant sums of money. They believe that in order to carry out an ex post examination of between 150-200 vehicles a year, the centre would need twice as many staff dedicated to this task, which would effectively mean a personnel of around 60 employees (out of the 3,000 currently working at the centre). He also argued in favour of gradually opening up three or four new test laboratories (which will cost around €5 million for each unit).
It should be pointed out that the draft regulation seeks to be budgetary neutral for the current period, which would effectively mean a number of holes would appear in existing programmes. For the following period, the amount will depend on the multiannual financial framework in force, according to the Commission proposal. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)