The European Parliament adopted by 651 votes to 24 with 7 abstentions, a legislative resolution the proposal for a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 1999/37/EC on the registration documents for vehicles.
Parliament adopted its position in first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure. The amendments adopted in plenary are the result of an agreement negotiated between Parliament and Council.
Safety and environmental protection: the amended text stresses that roadworthiness testing is a part of a wider regime ensuring that vehicles are kept in a safe and environmentally acceptable condition during their use. That regime should provide for periodic roadworthiness testing of vehicles and technical roadside inspection of vehicles used for commercial road transport activities as well as a vehicle registration procedure allowing for the suspension of a vehicle's authorisation to be used in road traffic where the vehicle constitutes an immediate risk to road safety.
Electronic record: Member States shall record electronically data on all vehicles registered on their territory. Those data shall include:
Suspension and cancellation: where the competent authority of a Member State receives notification of a periodic roadworthiness test showing that the authorisation to use a particular vehicle in road traffic has been suspended, the suspension shall be recorded electronically. The suspension shall be effective until the vehicle has passed a new roadworthiness test. On successful completion of the roadworthiness test, the competent authority shall without delay re-authorise the use of the vehicle in road traffic. No new process of registration shall be necessary.
Member States or their competent authorities may adopt measures to facilitate the retesting of a vehicle the authorisation of which for use in road traffic has been suspended. Those measures may include the grant of permission to travel on public roads between a place of repair and a test centre for the purpose of a roadworthiness test.
Parliament states that an obligation to cancel permanently the registration of a vehicle notified as having been treated as an end-of-life vehicle in accordance with Directive 2000/53/EC should be introduced. Member States have the option of specifying in national law other reasons for cancelling a vehicle registration.
Even where a vehicle registration has been cancelled, it should be possible to retain a record of that registration.
Mutual recognition: Member States shall, as a matter of principle, recognise the validity of the roadworthiness certificate in the event that the ownership of a vehicle – which has a valid proof of periodic roadworthiness test – changes.
Mutual assistance: Member States shall assist one another in the implementation of the Directive. They may exchange information at bilateral or multilateral level in particular so as to check, before any registration of a vehicle, the latter's legal status, where necessary in the Member State in which it was previously registered. Such checking may in particular involve the use of an electronic network, comprising data from national electronic databases to facilitate the exchange of information.