Road transport: ecopoints for heavy vehicles transiting through Austria for 2004

The committee adopted the report by Luciano CAVERI (ELDR, I) amending the Council's common position under the 2nd reading of the codecision procedure. MEPs concluded that the common position did not differ in any way from the text of the Council's political agreement of 31 December 2002, to which they had already made known their opposition. They therefore voted to reinstate all the amendments adopted by Parliament at 1st reading, such as: the phasing-in of measures to encourage the use of environmentally-friendly lorries in key areas of the Alps if the Commission's proposal on charging for the use of infrastructure has not entered into force by the end of 2004; ensuring that the system applies only to transit traffic through the Austrian Alps and not to Austria as a whole; requiring the countries affected by the Regulation to include in their existing checking systems ways of determining whether actual nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions correspond to the Conformity of Production (COP) value or type-approval value; and extending the scope of the regulation to include the applicant countries, with the quotas being increased proportionally by each new Member State and by year. The committee also adopted an amendment deleting the proposed exceptions for Euro-O lorries from Greece and Portugal, arguing that lorries from all countries should be treated in the same way. �