Representatives of the European Parliament and the Romanian Presidency of the Council of the European Union reached a provisional political agreement on Tuesday 12 February at a single inter-institutional negotiation meeting ('trilogue') on the deadline for the implementation of special rules regarding maximum length of truck cabins.
This agreement “means increased RoadSafety and up to 10% less emissions from long-haul trucks per year”, Violeta Bulc welcomed the outcome of the meeting.
The European Commission had submitted a proposal for a decision last May last to accelerate the deployment of trucks equipped with aerodynamic cabs (see EUROPE 12022). Both Parliament and the EU Council had adopted their negotiating positions at the end of January (see EUROPE 12177, 12183).
The aim here is to revise Directive 96/53/EC on maximum authorised dimensions in national and international traffic and maximum authorised weights in international traffic. This has already been amended by Directive 2015/719/EU to allow trucks equipped with aerodynamic cabs to be exempt from the maximum lengths set by EU law and, ultimately to reinforce road safety and energy efficiency.
However, this latter Directive does not allow the introduction of such cabs until 3 years after the entry into force of technical provisions on the type-approval of vehicles. These latter provisions, which are to be the subject of an implementing act by the Commission, have not yet entered into force, as the technical work is still in progress.
For this reason, the Commission has proposed to abolish this three-year moratorium and shorten it to four months after the entry into force of the proposed text.
While MEPs advocated extending this deadline to six months after the entry into force of the decision, States first wanted the technical provisions relating to type-approval to enter into force 3 months after the entry into force of the decision, before a 15-month moratorium would apply.
According to our information, the final agreement provides, in a simple recital of principle, that the technical provisions will enter into force on 1 November 2019. On the other hand, well integrated into the body of the text, it was decided that aerodynamic cabs will be put on the market on 1 September 2020. This puts a firm date on the table, not a relative date depending on the entry into force of the technical type-approval requirements.
This agreement must now be validated by the EU Council and Parliament. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)