WIREDGOV

The Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER I) endorsed the agreement reached between the Lithuanian EU Council Presidency, the European Parliament and the Commission on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the sound level of motor vehicles.

This Regulation lays down the administrative and technical requirements for the EU type-approval of all new vehicles with regard to the sound level of their silencing systems for Member States relating to the permissible sound level of motor vehicles and of their exhaust systems, with a view to facilitating their registration, sale and entry into service within the Union.

According to the Minister of Transport of the Republic of Lithuania Rimantas Stankevičius, the conclusion of negotiations on this dossier was one of the priority of the Lithuanian EU Council Presidency to strengthen internal market.

“This important piece of EU legislation harmonises the requirements for reduction of sound on EU level and helps ensure the proper functioning of the internal market. It provides for a high level of environmental protection and public health and safety, taking account of road vehicles as an important source of noise in the transport sector. At the same time it promotes quieter vehicle. In the following years the permissible noise from cars will undergo dramatic reduction. That is an important trend,” said the Minister of Transport of Lithuania.

The co-legislators in the trilogues negotiated such aspects as labelling and consumer information, Acoustic Vehicle Alert System (AVAS), Monitoring and market surveillance, Road surface quality classification, Test parameters, vehicle categories, limit values, timeframe for implementation.

The Lithuanian Presidency, on the basis of the mandate given on 26 June, entered into negotiations with the European Parliament, and held three trilogues. The negotiations took place at an accelerated rate in order to secure that this Regulation could be adopted before the end of EP's legislature, given that following the EP plenary vote this is a second-reading procedure.

The Committee (COREPER I) decided to submit the agreed text to the Council as an I/A item for political agreement, subject to receiving an approval letter from the Chair of the European Parliament's ENVI Committee confirming that the attached text is acceptable to the European Parliament.

Background

On 9 December 2011, the Commission submitted the above-mentioned proposal to the European Parliament and the Council. The Council started examining the proposal on 23 February 2012. The ENVI Committee of the European Parliament voted on the proposal on 18 December 2012. The EP plenary voted on 6 February 2013.

More information:                                            http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/139612.pdf