According to Directive 2000/53/EC on end-of-life vehicles (ELV Directive), the Commission should re-examine the 2015 targets on the basis of a report of the Commission. This report should take into account the development of the material composition of vehicles and any other relevant environmental aspects related to vehicles. The Commission has therefore prepared this report. An important element of the elaboration of this report was the assessment of the environmental, economic and social impacts of the targets and alternative options.
The impact assessment included the analysis of available information from a study on the costs and benefits of the ELV Directive carried out for the Commission by an external consultant, formal and informal stakeholder consultation in a multi-stakeholder working group and an electronic consultation on the final report of the study, meetings with the experts of the Member States and in-house scenario-building of economic and environmental impacts of options. Complications occurred given the fact that the ELV Directive is at an early stage of implementation by the Member States and information as to the currently attained recycling and recovery levels in the Member States is limited. The first reports on the targets are due by the Member States in 2008 and will contain information for 2006. However, information available to the Commission has allowed a fair evaluation of the current situation and the future prospects in vehicle recovery and recycling and to conclude on whether or not the targets set by the ELV Directive for 2015 should be amended.
The report concludes that the targets set by the ELV Directive for 2015 can generate substantial environmental and economic benefits. Repealing or reducing these targets would reduce both types of benefits. Whilst any estimation looking 9 years into the future must involve a degree of uncertainty, the Commission concludes that the 85% reuse/recycling and 95% reuse/recovery targets for 2015 are optimal both in terms of environmental and economic performance.
These targets should remain stable in order to guarantee investment security into more cost-efficient waste treatment technologies. Therefore, the Commission shall not propose revising the targets.
However, account should be taken of the central finding that the magnitude of the environmental and economic benefits generated will be intimately linked to the pace of eco-innovation.
Importantly, the dissipation of uncertainty concerning the maintaining of targets set by the Directive for 2015 will in itself reduce the importance of the observed market imperfections and barriers to eco-innovation. To foster eco-innovation in this field and to further the promotion and uptake of advanced technologies, the Commission will:
co-fund research initiatives under the European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund as well as fund integrative research through the upcoming 7th Research Framework Programme;
develop projects and initiatives under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework programme;
pro-actively promote innovative shredder technologies and plastic recycling.
The Commission will report back on the implementation of the ELV Directive in the Member States in 2009. This report will, inter alia, evaluate the need to address the issue of non-harmonised implementation of the Directive. In particular, it shall evaluate the implementation costs and the movement of goods between Member States and assess whether certain provisions of the Directive should come under Article 95 of the Treaty. The report will also assess the progress of eco-innovation and will take into account related developments such as the outcome of the current review of the Waste Framework Directive and the outcome of the CARS 21 project.