The common position accepted by the Council retains the essence of the Commission's initial proposal. The Commission accepts the amendments introduced by the Council and considers that they will improve the quality of the legislative text.
The Common Position takes account of a large number of amendments requested by the European Parliament. There remains one point of divergence between the Common Position and the Parliament's opinion. It concerns the Parliament's amendment 15, which would have considerably widened the scope of the directive by extending its application to cases of accidents which occur outside the injured party's Member State of residence including also accidents occurring in third countries. This amendment, that neither the Commission nor the Council were able to accept, would have given rise to many practical problems.�