EU adopts new car type-approval and emissions testing system
Car emissions testing
(BRUSSELS) - The EU adopted Wednesday a regulation to reform the type-approval and market surveillance system for motor vehicles in the EU, modernising the current system and improving control tests on car emissions.
The system's aim is to achieve a high level of safety and environmental performance of vehicles and to address the main shortcomings identified in the existing type-approval system.
"We have built a robust and reliable type approval system which will prevent the irregularities that we have seen in the past," siad Bulgaria's Economy Minister Emil Karanikolov, for the EU presidency: "It provides European citizens with higher standards of safety and better health and environmental protection. Likewise our car manufacturers will benefit from operating on a level playing field."
Important changes are introduced in three areas by strengthening:
- the quality of testing that allows a vehicle to be placed on the market through improved technical services
- market surveillance to control the conformity of vehicles already available on the market, with the possibility for member states and the Commission to carry out spot-checks on vehicles in order to detect failures at an early stage
- the oversight of the type-approval process, in particular empowering the Commission to carry out periodic assessments on national type-approval authorities and through the establishment of a Forum for the exchange of information on enforcement, made up of representatives of national approval and market surveillance authorities
The harmonised implementation of the new rules across the EU will reduce differences in interpretation and application by national type-approval authorities and technical services.
In addition, the new system will enable the detection of non-compliance cases at an early stage.
The regulation, which will be published in the Official Journal of the EU in the coming weeks, will be applicable from 1 September 2020.