Member States' ambassadors to the European Union (Committee of the Permanent Representatives - Coreper) objected on Thursday 4 July to the delegated regulation on the deployment of cooperative intelligent transport systems (C-ITS).
It will ultimately be a 'no'. After several weeks of discussions in the working party on ‘Transport – intermodal questions and network' of the Council of the European Union, echoing the presentation of the delegated act on the deployment of C-ITS last March by the European Commission (see EUROPE 12213/37), Coreper finally decided not to give it the green light.
While the threshold of 21 Member States representing 65% of the population was necessary to object to this delegated regulation, this threshold has just been reached, according to our information. Austria, Belgium and Poland voted in favour of the text, Portugal and Slovenia abstained, while Ireland and Lithuania did not wish to speak. And 21 Member States have therefore expressed their opposition to the act.
A few days ago, there were still significant uncertainties in this case (see EUROPE 12284/11, 12283/28), with the positions of national delegations not all having been definitively determined. And in view of the first exchanges on this subject (see EUROPE 12248/6), this decision by the ambassadors of the Member States was not necessarily expected.
The aim is to improve road safety by enabling vehicles to communicate with each other and with the infrastructure, amongst other matters. In this case, the central question concerns the choice of technologies for this deployment of C-ITS.
The Commission, in the act it adopted, wishes to rely on WiFi technology for short-range communications. Other players want cellular technologies to be able to be used in this context. Lobbying has been intense on this issue, opposing supporters of one or the other technology.
While the Council of the EU and the European Parliament have, in principle, two months to approve or object to such an act, the legal doubts expressed by several national delegations in working groups had led, in May, to a two-month postponement of the decision of the Council of the EU and to the request for an opinion from the legal services (see EUROPE 12253/29). This legal opinion, which highlighted several shortcomings in the text (see EUROPE 12276/14), will therefore probably defeat the delegated regulation tabled by the Commission.
Indeed, it would appear that a significant number of Member States have put forward the argument of legal certainty to justify their objection to the text. Jurisdictional issues were amongst the key issues.
This Coreper decision must now be formally approved by the Council of the EU on 8 July, which will mean that the delegated act cannot enter into force. This is despite the European Parliament's green light of 17 April (see EUROPE 12238/6).
Reaction. Violeta Bulc, the Commissioner responsible for transport policy, was quick to react to this decision by Coreper, as in recent weeks she has been a strong advocate of the deployment of C-ITS and, therefore, of the delegated act.
"While awaiting the final decision by the Council, let me reiterate why Europe needs EU-wide deployment of C-ITS and why it needs it now. It will save lives. It will give us a global competitive edge. It is good for our industry and will help us lead on automation," she said. (Original version in French by Lucas Tripoteau)