Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the approval of motor vehicles and their trailers, and of systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles (recast version)’ (COM(2003) 418 final – 2003/0153 (COD))
Date: 2004-01-28
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: approximation of laws, commercial vehicle, motor vehicle, technical regulations, transport safety

30.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 108/29

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council on the approval of motor vehicles and their trailers, and
of systems, components and separate technical units intended for such vehicles (recast version)’

(COM(2003) 418 final – 2003/0153 (COD))

(2004/C 108/03)

On 28 July 2003 the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 95 of the Treaty establishing the European Community on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing the
Committee's work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 16 December 2003. The rapporteur was
Mr Levaux).

At its 405th plenary session of 28 and 29 January 2004 (meeting of 28 January), the European Economic
and Social Committee adopted the following opinion unanimously:

1. Introduction

1.2 Involvement of interested parties in drafting the proposal

1.1 Aim of the proposal

The draft directive

1.1.1
recasting of Council
Directive 70/156/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the
Member States relating to the approval of motor vehicles and
their trailers.

is

a

1.1.2
Directive 70/156/EEC is the main legal instrument for
implementing the single market in the automotive sector. Agri-
cultural tractors will also be included in this process following
the adoption of a new directive amending the framework
Directive 74/150/EEC of 4 March 19974. The Committee
issued an opinion on this subject on 16 April 1969 (1).

1.1.3
The Commission believes that the time has come to
extend to commercial vehicles the principles already established
for other categories of vehicles.

The technical annexes of Directive 70/156/EEC were
1.1.4
consolidated into a single document in the first stage of the
recasting. The current proposal
is the second stage in this
process, involving the recasting of the legislative provisions of
the directive. This means that an approval procedure covering
all categories of commercial vehicles could come into force as
It should be noted that Community type-
early as 2007.
approval has been compulsory for passenger cars
since
1 January 1998 and for motorcycles and mopeds since 17 June
1999.

1.1.5
The Commission believes that the adoption of the
draft directive repealing Directive 70/156/EEC, which has been
18 amended times, will result in a more consistent, better-struc-
tured text, to the benefit of manufacturers, Member States and
candidate countries.

The Commission notes

1.2.1
that Member States were
informed about the proposal's content by the Commission's
Consultative Group and the Motor Vehicle Working Group
(MVWG). In addition, the Commission took account of the
work done by the OTA (Operationality of Type-Approval)
working party and, to large extent, also the work of the TAAM
(Type-Approval Authorities Meeting) working party. The
majority of government experts support the proposal, although
some have expressed reservations as to whether the type-
approval of commercial vehicles should be optional or compul-
sory.

in advance,

1.2.2
The Commission stresses that the draft directive will
have an enormous impact. In the table in point 5.2 of the
explanatory memorandum (Appendix 1 of the present opinion)
the Commission compares the annual production of passenger
cars, light trucks and heavy commercial vehicles in the USA,
Japan and the EU-15. Production in the EU-15 is stagnant. It is
therefore regrettable that the Commission did not include an
extra column,
for the 12 candidate countries,
where national production has been boosted as a result of
heavy investment by Western manufacturers (2). The Commis-
sion also notes that the number of commercial vehicles in the
EU-15 will increase from 24,829,000 in 2000 to 32,867,000
in 2014. While the Committee appreciates that the draft direc-
tive will cover many millions of vehicles,
it would like the
Commission to clarify its figures, given that the EU-15 will
become the EU-27 by 2014 and that the 12 new Member
States are making very rapid progress in this area.

that

The Commission points out

the automotive
1.2.3
industry was involved from the outset in the preparation of the
proposal and made an important contribution to developing
the concept of multi-stage type-approval procedures. The
Commission further notes that the industry is generally suppor-
tive of the proposal, provided a sufficiently long lead-time is
built in to allow all manufacturers, including body-builders, to
comply with the requirements on type-approval.

(1) OJ C 48 of 16.4.1969.

(2) Following the Committee's comment,

the Commission proposal

now includes the missing figures.

C 108/30

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

30.4.2004

1.3 Content of the draft directive

2. General comments

1.3.1

The following are some of the key concepts:

— the draft directive is based on total harmonisation, which
means that Community type-approval procedures will be
compulsory and will replace the national procedures;

— the procedures will allow type-approval of a complete
vehicle by combining the separate type-approvals issued for
its constituent systems, components and technical units,
even when partial type-approvals have been carried out in
various Member States;

— a new method of type-approval – multi-stage type-approval
of the integral parts of a vehicle – is introduced in order to
bring the situation into line with the manufacture of
commercial vehicles. For this category of vehicles,
the
manufacturer of the base vehicle normally carries out type-
approval of the chassis, including the cab and power unit,
while the second manufacturer assembles the bodywork
according to the goods to be transported. The completed
vehicle is then presented for final type-approval;

— passenger cars built

in small series will henceforth be
included in the harmonised Community type-approval
system;

— the possibility of individual approval of passenger vehicles.

1.3.2
The draft directive forms a coherent whole, which will
significantly simplify type-approval operations for manufac-
turers:

— once a vehicle has been type-approved by one Member
State it will be possible to register all vehicles of this type
throughout the Community on the basis of their certificate
of conformity;

— ‘safeguard clauses are included to enable Member States,
either at the time of type-approval or on registration, to
refuse vehicles which, although they comply with all of the
directives applicable, might prove dangerous
road
safety. This principle has also been extended to cover envir-
onmental issues’. The Committee would point out that this
wording (point 6.1 of
the explanatory memorandum –
‘General’) suggests that some of the applicable directives
could be dangerous from the point of view of road safety
or the environment. This is not the case, however, and the
Committee therefore suggests that the Commission add the
qualifier ‘in exceptional cases’ after the word ‘refuse’ in the
above paragraph.

for

2.1
In a recent opinion on the draft Directive relating to the
protection of pedestrians and amending Directive 70/156/EEC
(CESE 919/2003) (3), the Committee made a number of sugges-
tions, some of which must be restated in the present opinion.

2.2
The Committee endorses the Commission's initiative to
recast a directive which has been amended 18 times and to
harmonise the applicable rules, thus simplifying procedures and
at the same time promoting the development of the single
market.

On the other hand,

2.3
this recast version of Directive
70/156/EEC contains another, broader objective concerning the
improvement of road safety and environmental protection
which the Committee feels has not been elaborated sufficiently.

2.4
Therefore the Committee would reiterate that the main
objective of introducing compulsory Community type-approval
is ‘to increase the safety of vehicles in use and to protect
the same time
in collisions, while at
vehicle occupants
respecting the environment’. This objective must be part of an
overall approach which goes beyond the simple application of
measures aimed at minimising the consequences of an acci-
dental collision or a failure of a component, system or consti-
tuent unit of a vehicle.

2.5
the
In its opinion on the protection of pedestrians,
Committee singles out three aspects of pedestrian protection,
which should also be mentioned in the explanatory memor-
andum:

— increasing the sense of responsibility of those involved:
carelessness by pedestrians, cyclists and vehicle drivers very
often causes collisions. It should therefore be stressed that
accidents can be caused by all three groups and that there
is a need to encourage responsible behaviour by all road
users;

the

— education and information:

automotive

industry,
together with other interested parties, should provide an
input to education and training and respond to training
needs from primary school onwards and engage in regular
information campaigns to encourage people to act correctly
from an early age;

— infrastructure: porous asphalt surfaces, as well as traffic
signs and related detection systems should be the subject of
a joint study by the European automotive sector and road
construction industry.

a

Thus,

although this

technical directive,

2.6
the
is
Committee would once again ask the Commission to amend
and supplement its explanatory memorandum in line with the
above-mentioned suggestions so as to better develop ‘the
content of an overall policy on accident prevention for road
and street users’.

(3) OJ C 234 of 30.9.2003

30.4.2004

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

C 108/31

3. Specific comments

for

the European automotive industry,

As concerns the impact of the draft directive and its
3.1
consequences
the
Committee agrees with professionals from the sector that there
must be sufficiently long time-limits for the application of the
directive. It understands this request and considers it justified,
particularly for body-builders. Although the Committee does
not possess all the necessary information, it considers that the
planned schedule for the enforcement of the directive, which
extends from 1 January 2007 to 1 January 2012 (Article 40
and Annex XVI ), is reasonable.

On the other hand, the Committee does not understand
3.2
the reservations expressed by some government experts.
It
would like to know the reasoning behind the assertion by some
of them that ‘that only minimal benefit for road safety or the
environment could be expected from compulsory enforcement
but that there would be an increased cost to manufacturers’.
The Committee does not share this view. On the contrary, the
Committee is convinced that the directive will have a positive
the
impact on safety and the environment, provided that
proposals concerning the development of an overall approach
are implemented within an acceptable timeframe.

3.3
Clearly, the cost to manufactures will be considerable,
but acceptable if spread over 10 or 20 years. Consequently, the
Committee would like an alternative evaluation of the cost of
the draft directive to be carried out with all the interested
parties to check whether the automotive industry could bear
the cost over these long time horizons. The Committee thinks
that it would be better to extend the time limits for application

Brussels, 28 January 2004.

of the directive, rather than set impossible dates with repercus-
sions for employment, costs and even the very survival of
companies, including equipment manufacturers. In the current
context of enlargement and the economic difficulties faced by
Europe, a provisional check of this kind is consistent with the
application of the principles of precaution and expediency.

3.4
the
As regards end-of-series vehicles (Article 26(3)),
time-limit set for Member States to respond to requests from
manufacturers should be shortened from 3 months to 1 month
so as to reduce stock holding costs

In its opinion on the type-approval of agricultural trac-
3.5
tors and related equipment (4),
the Committee drew the
Commission's attention to the growing market for motor quad-
ricyles (Quads). These are not mentioned in the draft directive
or in the directive on agricultural tractors and related equip-
ment. The Committee would emphasise the urgency of harmo-
nising EU type-approval procedures for Quads.

4. Conclusions

The Committee welcomes the simplification and trans-

4.1
parency that will result from recasting Directive 70/156/EEC.

4.2
Although this is a technical directive, the Committee
suggests that the Commission emphasise in point 3 (‘Back-
ground’) of the explanatory memorandum that the main objec-
tive is to improve ‘safety’ in the use of vehicles with a view to
not only protecting vehicle occupants but also to preventing
collisions with other road users, pedestrians, cyclists and other
vehicles.

The President

of the European Economic and Social
Committee

Roger BRIESCH

(4) OJ C 221 of 17.9.2002