Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Bulgarian Presidency of the Council, assisted by the European Commission, came to a political agreement on Monday evening 26 March on the draft regulation aiming to establish a system in the EU for monitoring, verifying and reporting CO2 emissions and information on the fuel consumption of newly registered heavy vehicles in the EU – lorries, buses and coaches (see EUROPE 11947).
Damiano Zoffoli (S&D, Italy), who lead the negotiations for the Parliament, welcomed the outcome, stating: “This legislation will fill a gap related to the CO2 emissions of heavy duty vehicles, which are responsible for 40% of greenhouse gas emissions of road transport”.
The agreement on the MRV system, reached in only the second trialogue meeting, contains the promise of progress in implementing the Paris climate agreement but the details still have to be worked out.
Under the terms of the agreement, there will be harmonised measuring and monitoring of emissions.
The information supplied by the member states and the manufacturers of these vehicles will be recorded in a central EU register, hosted on the website of the European Environmental Agency (EEA). It will, therefore, be available to the public except where there is a need to protect private information and ensure fair competition.
Vehicle manufacturers will monitor and report information for each new vehicle using the Vehicle Energy Consumption Calculation Tool (VECTO) over each calendar year.
The Commission will set up a system of administrative fines in case of vehicle manufacturers not reporting the data or reporting falsified data. It will also set up a system for monitoring and reporting the results of future on-road tests for the verification of the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of heavy-duty vehicles.
Hailing an “ambitious agreement”, European Climate Action Commissioner Miguel Arias Canete stated: “With this new robust, reliable and transparent monitoring and reporting system, we are on track for the next step: CO2 emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles to be proposed in May 2018” (see EUROPE 11952). The president in office of the Environment Council of the EU, Bulgarian minister Neno Dimov, made no comment.
The text of the political agreement still has to be approved by Parliament and the Council. Parliament’s environment committee will put it to a vote on 16-17 May at the latest. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)