COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty concerning the Common Position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and Council amending Directive 97/68/EC relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery (spark ignition engines).

2000/0336 (COD)

COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT pursuant to the second subparagraph of Article 251 (2) of the EC Treaty concerning the Common Position of the Council on the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and Council amending Directive 97/68/EC relating to measures against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants from internal combustion engines to be installed in non-road mobile machinery (spark-ignition engines).

1. BACKGROUND

Date of transmission of the proposal to the EP and the Council (document COM(2000) 840 final - COD 2000/0336): // 18 December 2000

Date of the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee: // 11 July 2001

Date of the opinion of the European Parliament, first reading: // 2 October 2001

Date of adoption of a political agreement // 29 October 2001

Date of adoption of the common position: // 25 March 2002

2. OBJECTIVE OF THE COMMISSION PROPOSAL

The objective of the proposal is to extend the scope of current Directive 97/68/EC on emissions from compression ignition engines to be used in non-road mobile machinery to cover also small spark ignition (petrol) engines (lawn mowers, chain saws, trimmers, cutters, pumps, generating sets etc). Those engines are produced world-wide to a number of about 25 million yearly and their contribution to the overall emissions of the VOC in the Community is 10-15%. This amendment will contribute to achieving ambient air quality targets especially concerning ground level ozone.

The main elements of the proposal are:

* Two stages of limit values to apply from 18 months after the entry into force of the Directive (stage I) and 2004-2010 depending on engine class (stage II)

* A system of averaging and banking and some special arrangements for small volume manufacturers and small engine types in order to obtain a world wide alignment.

3. COMMENTS ON THE COMMON POSITION

3.1 General comments

The Rapporteur of the Parliament, Mr Lange, and the Belgian Presidency had agreed to make an effort to reach a first reading agreement, which almost succeeded. The European Parliament adopted at its first reading in the Plenary 1-4 October 21 amendments. 8 of those amendments were about the deletion of the Averaging and Banking system proposed by the Commission. The other amendments were mainly to move implementation dates forward and to include possibilities for the Member States to use labelling and economic incentives to encourage the marketing of products meeting stage II standards before those becomes mandatory.

The amendment that hindered a first reading agreement was one about indefinite exemptions from the legislation for a number of two stroke engines - stage I as well as stage II.

The Common Position takes account of all amendments of those adopted by the European Parliament in its first reading, except for three. The Council did not accept amendments 18 and 22 of the European Parliament, about the possibility of using labelling and economic incentives. The view of the Council was that such a text was not necessary since the Treaty already covers this. Furthermore amendment 29 of the European Parliament was rejected. This amendment included a number of indefinite exemptions from stage II. Such exemptions would have notably limited the environmental benefits of the legislation. Instead the Council adopted the solution proposed by the Rapporteur in amendment 30, to give the Commission the possibility of introducing time-limited exemption by the use of Comitology. In addition the Commission declared its intention to come forward with a proposal on necessary exemptions in good time before stage II enters into force.

3.2 Commission's view on the Common position

At the plenary of the European Parliament the Commission accepted all the amendments of the Parliament except amendment 29 about the exemptions for certain engines. On 26 October 2001 the Commission decided on an amended proposal which included all those amendments accepted at the plenary.

The Council decision to include the amendment 30 of the European Parliament instead of amendment 29 is supported by the Commission as a good compromise solution once the system of averaging and banking was rejected. It will give the possibility to examine more in detail what exemptions are really needed and what environmental consequences such exemptions will have.

The exclusion of the text on economic incentives and labelling is in line with the original Commission proposal. The text proposed by the European Parliament would have been acceptable for the Commission but for this kind of equipment it is not likely that any economic incentives will be used anyhow. This was the reason why the Commission did not address that issue in its original proposal.

4. CONCLUSION

In general, the Commission welcomes the Common Position, as a good compromise. While Council and Parliament have rejected the system of averaging and banking proposed by the Commission, it has been replaced by a Comitology procedure to exempt certain equipment with compliance problems without significantly affecting the overall environmental result. Hence the Commission can accept and support the Common Position adopted and invites the two institutions to reach an agreement on this amending Directive as soon as possible.