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 reached by the Council on the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC

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 reached by the Council on the adoption of a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on action to be taken against the emission of gaseous and particulate pollutants by engines intended to power agricultural or forestry tractors and amending Council Directive 74/150/EEC

1- BACKGROUND

Date of transmission of the proposal to the EP and the Council (document COM(98)472 final - 98/0247 COD): 3 September 1998

Date of the opinion of the Economic and Social Committee: 27 January 1999

Date of the opinion of the European Parliament on first reading: 5 May 1999

Date of transmission of the amended proposal: 16 August 1999

Date of adoption of the common position: 8 November 1999

2- AIM OF THE COMMISSION PROPOSAL

This proposal for a Directive lays down requirements for the levels of pollutant emissions from the engines of agricultural or forestry tractors. In an attempt at ensuring industrial coherence, these requirements are identical to those adopted for the engines of non-road mobile machinery, as laid down in two stages by Directive 97/68/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 59, 27.2.1998).

3- COMMENTS ON THE COMMON POSITION

3.1 Brief general comments on the common position

Apart from editorial amendments, the Council common position differs from the Commission proposal only as regards the following two points: a new Article 4 ("Implementation timetable") has been introduced and Article 7 ("Tax incentives") has been deleted.

3.2 Action taken on the amendments by the European Parliament in first reading:

-EP amendments accepted by the Commission and contained in the common position:

None

-EP amendments accepted by the Commission and not contained in the common position:

Amendment No 1, which refers to the "modus vivendi" in the form of a new recital, had been accepted by the Commission, though it had considered it superfluous. Therefore, the Commission can accept the common position.

Amendment No 3 (purely editorial) concerning Article 7 on tax incentives, which was accepted by the Commission, has not been taken into account in the common position as Article 7 has been deleted. The Commission can, however, accept the deletion of that Article since, as in the motor vehicles sector, the question of tax incentives has never arisen in practice in the agricultural tractors sector, as far as we know. There is therefore no need to legislate for a situation which has been shown to be unlikely to occur.

3.3 New provisions introduced by the Council and Commission position on them:

Apart from the deletion of Article 7 on tax incentives, the main differences as compared with the Commission proposal concern the crucial subject of the dates of application of this Directive (depending on the different categories of engine power and the second stage for the pollutant limit values). The Commission does, however, believe that the proposal has not been altered in substance.

4- CONCLUSION

The Commission supports the common position. The environmental protection concerns are such that this political agreement should be accepted as it will speed up the adoption of the Directive.