Member States’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper I) gave the green light on Tuesday 30 June to amend Regulation 2016/1628 on emission limits and type-approval of internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery, in order to postpone the implementation of the regulation for 1 year, initially set for 30 June 2020.
The EU Council introduced a retroactive implementation clause, since the amendment to the Regulation to postpone the date of implementation of the Regulation can only be agreed with the European Parliament during the month of July. The European Parliament had in fact delayed the vote on the text, disapproving the EU Council’s introduction of a revision clause in order to be able to extend the implementation of the regulation once again if the pandemic were to continue. Since then, the EU Council has dropped this clause.
As a reminder, at the heart of the health crisis linked to Covid-19, the Commission had proposed to give manufacturers an additional 12 months to comply with the new rules in order to take account of the seasonal nature of the non-road vehicles in which the transition engines will be installed (in particular for inland waterway vessels). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)