The Council adopted unanimously its common position with a view to the adoption of a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency and other essential parameters.
Concerning the 42 amendments adopted by the European Parliament, the Council has followed the Commission in accepting 28 amendments in part or in their entirety.
With respect to Parliament concerns regarding the fuel savings calculator and Commission website (4 amendments), which should help to ensure proper visibility and comprehension of the proposed labelling scheme for tyres, the intention is to have them addressed by a statement by the Commission when the legislative act is adopted. The Council also rejected 4 amendments on grounds of substance and/or of form.
Regarding the European Parliament amendments where the Council has deviated from the Commission position, the Council has accepted 4 amendments on the following grounds:
· a recital encourages tyre manufactures to optimise all parameters beyond the standards already achieved;
· a new recital encourages Member States to strive to refrain from measures that impose unjustified, bureaucratic and unwieldy obligations on SMEs;
· in Article 4 (responsibilities of tyre suppliers) tyre suppliers should be given a choice between a sticker on each tyre and a label to be displayed. In that case it is requested in article 5 (responsibilities of tyre distributors) that the distributors show the printed label to the end-users before the sale of the tyre(s) at the point of sale. In addition, the Commission is called upon in article 14 (review) to assess in no less than 40 months whether the option of a label was as effective as that of a sticker on each tyre in contributing to the objectives of this Regulation;
· in Annex II the label shall provide information on external rolling noise class in order to facilitate easy recognition of low noise tyres, in addition to the display of the external rolling noise measured value.
The Council has rejected 4 amendments on the following grounds:
· 'Rolling resistance coefficient' is problematic to measure and this parameter does not appear relevant for the end-user's choice;
· the aim of this regulation is clearly set out in Article 1, which is to establish a framework for the provision of harmonised information on tyre parameters. Article 9 (1) requires that Member States shall neither prohibit, nor restrict the making available on the market of tyres on grounds of product information. Thus, this Regulation does not prejudice Regulation (EC) No 661/2009, which sets minimum requirements for type approval of products for placement on the EU market;
· compliance requirements are covered by Art. 12 'Enforcement'.
Regarding two amendments, some of the proposed information disclosure requirements in Article 6 (responsibilities of car suppliers and car distributors) could mislead or confuse the end-users. The proper importance should be placed on the overall performance of the car rather than of its individual components.
Thus, the Council proposed to accept information disclosure requirements only in the cases where end users are offered a choice at the point of sale between different tyres for fitting on a new vehicle.
Lastly, the Council shares the European Parliament’s opinion that Articles 4 and 5 (responsibilities of tyre suppliers and tyre distributors) shall not apply to tyres produced before 1 July 2012, as suggested in a new article 15 on 'Transitional provisions'.