Strasbourg, 04/07/2001 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament has called on the European Commission to present, within three months, a new directive on vehicle insurance, in order to improve compensation for victims of accidents outside their country of residence. With the adoption of a resolution on the basis of the own-initiative report by German Social Democrat Willi Rothley , MEPs call for a "fifth directive" on civil liability insurance that would mainly include the following provisions: 1) the obligation for the insurer to justify the offer or the refusal of compensation in the case of material or bodily harm resulting from an accident; 2) the issue, at the request of the insurance holder, of a declaration from the insurer on no-claims or requests for compensation of the insured during the last five years; 3) a maximum time limit for re-registration of vehicles, of three months (this time limit ranges from one day in Ireland to one year in Germany, Italy and the Netherlands); 4) the coverage of an insured person who is temporarily established in another EU Member State, for a maximum of 12 months; 5) the coverage of an insured person who buys a vehicle in another Member State to bring it back to his country of origin, during a maximum of 30 days; 6) a minimum level of compulsory insurance coverage of EUR 2 million.
All MEPs stressed during the debates the importance of the provisions concerning the insurance of temporary residents, "like students, temporary workers or family members who provisionally move to another country", according to remarks by Malcolm Harbour, British Conservative. Commissioner Frits Bolkestein stressed that "the Commission is fully aware of the need to modernise directives on automobile insurance - after all, the first of such directives was adopted 30 years ago. This is why the Commission began, in 1998, a revision exercise of our insurance directives". In this sense, "the initiative by Mr Rothley gives fresh impetus to the Commission". Even though it may not be able to present a proposal within three months, the Commission "will do its best to ensure the presentation of a complete proposal for modernising the legal framework of automobile insurance", said Mr Bolkestein. Nonetheless, he stressed, the harmonised time limit for re-registration of vehicles imported from another Member State "could be outside the scope of the insurance directives". In the same way, the obligation for insurers to provide a statement should be foreseen in a "way that does not go against the principle of price freedom which inspires the Community legislation on insurance".