THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, and in particular Article 95 thereof,
Having regard to the proposal from the Commission,
Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee(1),
Acting in accordance with the procedure referred to in Article 251 of the Treaty(2),
Whereas:
In accordance with Directive 2000/53/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 September 2000 on end-of-life vehicles(3), appropriate provisions should be laid down to ensure that type-approved vehicles belonging to category M1, and those belonging to category N1, may be put on the market only if they are reusable and/or recyclable to a minimum of 85 % by mass and are reusable and/or recoverable to a minimum of 95 % by mass.
Reusability of component parts, recyclability and recoverability of materials constitute a substantial part of the Community strategy for waste management. Therefore vehicle manufacturers and their suppliers should be requested to include those aspects at the earliest stages of the development of new vehicles, in order to facilitate the treatment of vehicles at the time when they reach the end of their life.
This Directive constitutes one of the separate directives within the framework of the Community whole vehicle type-approval system established by Council Directive 70/156/EEC of 6 February 1970 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of motor vehicles and their trailers(4).
That whole vehicle type-approval system is currently compulsory for vehicles belonging to category M1 and will be extended, in the near future, to all categories of vehicle. It is therefore necessary to include in the whole vehicle type-approval system those measures concerning the re-usability, recyclability and recoverability of vehicles.
Accordingly, it is necessary to lay down provisions to take into account the fact that N1 vehicles are not yet covered by the whole vehicle type-approval system.
The manufacturer should make available to the approval authority all relevant technical information as regards constituent materials and their respective masses in order to permit verification of the manufacturer's calculations in accordance with the standard ISO 22628: 2002.
The manufacturer's calculations can be properly validated at the time of the vehicle type-approval only if the manufacturer has put in place satisfactory arrangements and procedures to manage all information he receives from his suppliers. Before any type-approval can be granted, the competent body should carry out a preliminary assessment of those arrangements and procedures and should issue a certificate indicating that they are satisfactory.
The relevance of the different inputs in the calculations of the recyclability and recoverability rates has to be assessed in accordance with the processes for treatment of end-of-life vehicles. The manufacturer should therefore recommend a strategy for the treatment of end-of-life vehicles and should provide details thereof to the competent body. This strategy should be based on proven technologies, which are available or in development at the time of applying for the vehicle approval.
Special-purpose vehicles are designed to perform a specific function and require special bodywork arrangements which are not entirely under the control of the manufacturer. Consequently, the recyclability and recoverability rates cannot be calculated properly. Those vehicles should therefore be excluded from the requirements concerning calculation.
Incomplete vehicles constitute a significant proportion of N1 vehicles. The manufacturer of the base vehicle is not in a position to calculate the recyclability and recoverability rates for completed vehicles because the data concerning the later stages of construction are not available at the design stage of the base vehicles. It is therefore appropriate to require only the base vehicle to comply with this Directive.
The market shares of vehicles produced in small series are very limited, so that there will be little benefit to the environment if they have to comply with this Directive. It is therefore appropriate to exclude them from certain provisions of this Directive.
In accordance with Directive 2000/53/EC, appropriate measures should be taken, in the interests of road safety and protection of the environment, to prevent the reuse of certain component parts which have been removed from end-of-life vehicles. Such measures should be restricted to the reuse of parts in the construction of new vehicles.
The provisions set out in this Directive will impose on manufacturers the supply of new data relating to type-approval and therefore these particulars should be reflected in Directive 70/156/EEC, which establishes the exhaustive list of data to be submitted for type-approval. It is therefore necessary to amend that Directive accordingly.
The measures necessary for the adaptation to scientific and technical progress of this Directive should be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure provided for in Article 13(3) of Directive 70/156/EEC.
Since the objective of this Directive, namely to minimise the impact of end-of-life vehicles on the environment by requiring that vehicles be designed from the conception phase with a view to facilitating reuse, recycling and recovery, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States acting alone and can, therefore, by reason of the scale of the action, be better achieved at Community level, the Community may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve this objective.
In accordance with paragraph 34 of the Interinstitutional Agreement on better law-making(5), Member States will be encouraged to draw up, for themselves and in the interest of the Community, their own tables which will, as far as possible, illustrate the correlation between this Directive and the transposition measures and to make them public,
HAVE ADOPTED THIS DIRECTIVE:
This Directive lays down the administrative and technical provisions for the type-approval of vehicles covered by Article 2, with a view to ensuring that their component parts and materials can be reused, recycled and recovered in the minimum percentages set out in Annex I.
It lays down specific provisions to ensure that the re-use of component parts does not give rise to safety or environmental hazards.
This Directive shall apply to vehicles belonging to categories M1 and N1, as defined in Part A of Annex II to Directive 70/156/EEC, and to new or reused component parts of such vehicles.
Without prejudice to the application of the provisions of Article 7, this Directive shall not apply to:
special purpose vehicles as defined in part A, point 5, of Annex II to Directive 70/156/EEC;
multi-stage built vehicles belonging to category N1, provided that the base vehicle complies with this Directive;
vehicles produced in small series, referred to in Article 8(2)(a) of Directive 70/156/EEC.
For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:
‘vehicle’ means a motor vehicle;
‘component part’ means any part or any assembly of parts which is included in a vehicle at the time of its production. It also covers components and separate technical units as defined in Article 2 of Directive 70/156/EEC;
‘vehicle type’ means the type of a vehicle as defined in part B, points 1 and 3, of Annex II to Directive 70/156/EEC;
‘end-of-life vehicle’ means a vehicle as defined in point 2 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/53/EC;
‘reference vehicle’ means the version within a type of vehicle, which is identified by the approval authority, in consultation with the manufacturer and in accordance with the criteria laid down in Annex I, as being the most problematic in terms of reusability, recyclability and recoverability;
‘multi-stage built vehicle’ means a vehicle resulting from a multi-stage construction process;
‘base vehicle’ means a vehicle as defined in Article 2, fourth indent of Directive 70/156/CEE, which is used at the starting stage of a multi-stage construction;
‘multi-stage construction’ means the process by which a vehicle is produced in several stages by adding component parts to a base vehicle or by modifying those component parts;
‘reuse’ means reuse as defined in point 6 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/53/EC;
‘recycling’ means recycling as defined in the first sentence of point 7 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/53/EC;
‘energy recovery’ means energy recovery as defined in the second sentence of point 7 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/53/EC;
‘recovery’ means recovery as defined in point 8 of Article 2 of Directive 2000/53/EC;
‘reusability’ means the potential for reuse of component parts diverted from an end-of-life vehicle;
‘recyclability’ means the potential for recycling of component parts or materials diverted from an end-of-life vehicle;
‘recoverability’ means the potential for recovery of component parts or materials diverted from an end-of-life vehicle;
‘recyclability rate of a vehicle (Rcyc)’ means the percentage by mass of a new vehicle, potentially able to be reused and recycled;
‘recoverability rate of a vehicle (Rcov)’ means the percentage by mass of a new vehicle, potentially able to be reused and recovered;
‘strategy’ means a large-scale plan consisting of coordinated actions and technical measures to be taken as regards dismantling, shredding or similar processes, recycling and recovery of materials to ensure that the targeted recyclability and recoverability rates are attainable at the time a vehicle is in its development phase;
‘mass’ means the mass of the vehicle in running order as defined in point 2.6 of Annex I to Directive 70/156/EEC, but excluding the driver, whose mass is assessed at 75 kg;
‘competent body’ means an entity, e.g. a technical service or another existing body, notified by a Member State to carry out preliminary assessment of the manufacturer and to issue a certificate of compliance, in accordance with the prescriptions of this Directive. The competent body may be the type-approval authority, provided its competence in this field is properly documented.