Bulldozers – Photo by Koji Kikuchi on Pexels
(BRUSSELS) – The EU institutions reached provisional agreement Thursday on harmonised road safety requirements for the circulation of self-propelled machinery such as lawnmowers or bulldozers.
The Regulation governs the road approval and market surveillance of non-road mobile machinery, and will facilitate the use of mobile machinery, including cranes, harvesters, forklifts, or snow cleaners, on public roads.
The rules replace 27 sets of national legislation with a single, harmonised one, and will eliminate existing barriers to the free circulation of mobile machinery on public roads, while at the same time ensuring a high level of road safety. The new Regulation will also reduce compliance and administrative burden, with cost savings estimated at up to EUR 846 million over a period of 10 years.
Key aspects included in the text of the regulation agreed yesterday are:
- A harmonised regulatory framework for the road approval of mobile machinery, with a maximum design speed of 40 km/h, ensuring its free movement and facilitating intra-EU cross border use of such machinery.
- Empowerment for the Commission to adopt detailed technical requirements, 12 months ahead of the regulation’s entry into application.
- Rules and procedures for the market surveillance of such mobile machinery in case of non-compliance.
The European Parliament and EU Council now have to formally adopt the political agreement. Once both co-legislators have green-lighted the new Regulation, it will enter into application 36 months after its publication in the Official Journal of the EU.
