EU Transport Ministers are due to adopt their negotiating position on the roadworthiness package on Thursday 4 December. This package updates three European directives applicable to vehicle inspections, vehicle registration and roadside inspections on commercial vehicles.
Presented in April (see EUROPE 13627/8), this revision was discussed at the previous ‘Transport’ Council in June (see EUROPE 13655/6). The Member States’ representatives on the Council of the EU (Coreper) reached an agreement on Friday 21 November, published on Thursday 27 November.
Periodic technical inspection of light vehicles. Coreper has decided not to change the scope and minimum frequency of inspections. It did not retain the idea of annual inspections after 10 years and additional inspections for vans. On the other hand, Coreper has followed the initial proposal concerning inspections in a Member State other than that of registration and extended it to light commercial vehicles.
The compromise maintains the obligation set out in the proposal to create national databases of odometer readings in order to combat mileage fraud. In addition to roadworthiness testing centres, which are already required to record odometer data, workshops approved by car manufacturers and the manufacturers themselves, in the case of connected vehicles, would be included in the declaration system. The inclusion of other cases of odometer readings in the database would be left to the discretion of the Member State.
With regard to new methods for monitoring emissions from modern vehicles, the compromise in principle follows the Commission’s proposal on the measurement of particulate matter and NOx. However, it is planned that future implementing acts will detail the methods and scope of the controls, followed by specific implementation deadlines, in order to monitor the evolution of the methods.
The electronic roadworthiness certificate will become digital within four years of the directive coming into force, and will be authenticated by means of a QR code.
Technical roadside inspection of commercial vehicles. Coreper supported the extension of the scope to light commercial vehicles in category N1, i.e. commercial vehicles weighing up to 3.5 tonnes, such as vans and tractors.
The compromise establishes the concept of remote sensing as a voluntary measure, which will be reviewed once practical experience has been gained. In order to facilitate cross-border monitoring following the detection of a high-emission vehicle, the Commission may adopt implementing acts to set threshold values for such cross-border cooperation.
Read the compromise for these two texts: https://aeur.eu/f/jr7 ; and the appendices: https://aeur.eu/f/jr8
Vehicle registration. Coreper agreed on the need to draw up a minimum set of data to be recorded in national vehicle registers, to enable an efficient and consistent exchange of data between Member States. In order to address their concerns about significant structural changes to their national vehicle registers, the data requirements have been limited.
An article on temporary de-registration has been added and the measures applicable to the re-registration of a vehicle have been clarified. All this data will be available on the MOVE-HUB system developed by the Commission. Member States will still be able to use their own or third-party applications, including EUCARIS.
For these three revisions, the transposition period has been extended to three years.
Read the compromise: https://aeur.eu/f/jr6 (Original version in French by Anne Damiani)