The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Food Safety adopted the report by GARDINI (EPP, IT) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on requirements relating to emission limits and type-approval for internal combustion engines for non-road mobile machinery.
The parliamentary committee recommended that the European Parliament's position adopted at first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure amends the Commission proposal as follows.
Purpose: in addition to broadening the scope of Union legislation in the field of market harmonisation, while minimising market distortions, Members consider that this Regulation should aim to simplify the current legal framework, including measures for simplifying administrative procedures, and to improve the general conditions for enforcement, in particular by strengthening the rules on market surveillance.
Definition of "engine": Members clarified the definition in order to cover all engine technologies, in particular with a view to whether or not they use electronic control unit(s) (ECUs) or after-treatment systems.
Retrofitting the engines already in service: given the long lifetimes of non-road mobile machinery, Members suggest that it is appropriate to consider retrofitting the engines already in service. Such retrofitting should in particular target densely populated urban areas and those in breach of Union air quality legislation.
Protection for persons working in the vicinity of machinery: Members stressed the necessity to keep the cumulative exposure of persons working in the vicinity of several different items of mobile machinery and equipment as low as possible. They recommend in this regard that state-of-the-art technologies should be used to minimise emissions.
Member States should have the power to prohibit the use of combustion engines for reasons of health and safety at work, in particular in poor air quality hotspots.
Ultrafine particles: to ensure that emissions of ultrafine particulate pollutants (size of 0.1μm and below) are controlled, the Commission should be empowered to adopt a number-based approach drawing on the results of the Particulate Measurement Programme (PMP) of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and should achieve at least the level of protection afforded by the existing Union legislation on road vehicles.
Agricultural vehicles: the Regulation should also apply to agricultural vehicles covered by the provisions of Regulation (EU) No 167/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council which replaces the repealed Directive 97/68/EC. In order to avoid unnecessary administrative burdens, the engines of the phase IIIB should be able to benefit from the transitional provisions laid down in this regulation with regard to the requirements for the application of the phase V.
Inland waterway vessels: an amendment to table I-6 in annex II expands the application of the same emission limit values as inland waterways propulsion engines to inland waterways auxiliary engines from >560kW only to include all powers.
Members also introduced an amendment allowing alignment of the inland waterways propulsion engine reference power with the American standard which does not impose a reference power greater than or equal to 37 kW.
Monitoring of emissions of the engines in service: Members have suggested that such testing shall be conducted under the responsibility of the manufacturer or the entity entrusted with such testing and under the supervision of the national type approval authority.
The Commission should conduct monitoring programmes to determine to what extent, the emissions resulting from the test cycle and on which the type -approval is based, correspond to the emissions measured in actual operation.
Certificate of conformity: MEPs felt that the formalities should evolve with the digital age and that it was appropriate to draw to reduce administrative burdens and costs.
Thus, instead of delivering a certificate of conformity, the manufacturer may apply a mark of conformity to the engine. That conformity marking shall include an electronic code readable with widely available information technology (IT) tools and allowing the retrieval of information on the engine from the manufacturer's website.
The Commission should be empowered to adopt a template for the conformity marking and the retrievable information and to establish the acceptable types of electronic codes used to access the information on the engine.
Exchange of data and information: in this field, Members considered that using the well-established Internal Market Information System (IMI) would save costs and unnecessary administrative efforts as compared to the set-up of a new digital platform proposed by the Commission.
Financial support for retrofitting: Members proposed that the Member States may make provision for financial incentives that apply to the retrofitting of in-use engines which do comply with this Regulation in order to meet the emission limit values set out in the Annex applicable to the type of engine to be retrofitted.
Transitional measures: during the period between the repeal of Directive 97/68/EC and the mandatory dates for stage V, it should not only still be possible to grant EU type-approvals under Directive 97/68/EC, but also the applicable exemptions.
In addition, for engines of the category NRE used in mobile cranes, Member States shall authorise an extension of the transition period by an additional 12 months.
For a period not exceeding 10 years from the applicable date for the placing on the market of Stage V engines set out in Annex III, Member States may authorise the placing on the market of engines of category RLL with a maximum net power greater than 2000 kW that do not comply with the emission limits set out in Annex II, and which are to be installed in locomotives which only run on a technically isolated 1520 mm railway network.
Finally, Members underlined the possible synergies between the non-road mobile machinery sector and heavy-duty vehicles as the related technologies are interlinked, and called on the Commission to consider further action in this area.