The Council’s position in first reading encompasses a vast majority of the amendments introduced by the European Parliament, in particular:
· most of the proposed additional recitals,
· the explicit reference to the 112-based eCall in-vehicle system,
· the requirement for the eCall system to be permanently installed within the vehicle and to provide a warning to the occupants of the vehicle in the event of a critical system failure.
The Council accepted the amendment of the European Parliament that calls on the Commission to:
· assess, following a study of the costs and benefits and broad consultation with stakeholders, the need of requirements for an interoperable, standardised, secure and open access platform and, if appropriate, to adopt a legislative initiative based on those requirements;
· explore the possibilities to extend the scope of the Regulation to other categories of vehicles, such as powered two-wheelers, heavy goods vehicles, busses and coaches, and agricultural tractors, and if appropriate, to present a proposal to that effect.
The Commission accepted new provisions introduced by the Council which seek in particular to:
· clarify the exemption from the scope of vehicles produced in small series, individually approved vehicles and vehicles which for technical reasons cannot be equipped with an eCall system;
· add specific provisions addressing the co-existence of third party eCall services (TPS eCall) with the 112-based eCall system;
· introduce provisions on the use of implementing acts and on the respective committee procedures for their adoption in light of the limited application of these provisions and the compromise reached in the context of privacy and data protection rules;
· postpone the application date to 31 March 2018.
Although the Commission regrets for practical reasons the decision of the Council restricting the delegation to the Commission to a fixed period of five years and the inclusion of the ‘no opinion clause’ in the committee procedure for the adoption of implementing acts, the Commission supports, in a spirit of compromise, the position adopted by the Council.