4 Energy efficiency: tyres
| (30193)
15920/08
+ ADDs 1-2
COM(08) 779
| Draft Directive on labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency and other essential parameters
|
| Legal base | Article 95 EC; co-decision; QMV
|
| Document originated | 13 November 2008
|
| Deposited in Parliament | 24 November 2008
|
| Department | Transport |
| Basis of consideration | EM of 8 December 2008
|
| Previous Committee Report | None
|
| To be discussed in Council | Not known
|
| Committee's assessment | Politically important
|
| Committee's decision | Not cleared; further information awaited
|
Background
4.1 In October 2006 the Commission put forward an Action Plan
for Energy Efficiency, aimed at providing a catalyst for action
in the period 2007-12. This reiterated the economic and environmental
benefits of achieving a 20% saving by 2020, and the extent of
the contributions which could be achieved in relation to residential
buildings, commercial buildings, manufacturing and transport.
It set out a large number of detailed measures, focusing in particular
on six key areas:
- dynamic energy performance requirements;
- improved energy production and distribution;
- transport;
- economic incentives and pricing;
- changing energy behaviour; and
- international partnerships.[11]
4.2 In July 2008 the Commission presented a Communication,
Greening transport, which noted that, although transport
is key to the economy and competitiveness of the Community, it
also imposes negative impacts on society, such as noise, congestion
and emissions, which are expected to get worse following projected
growth in transport use. The Communication summarised the work
that had already been done by the Community to make transport
more sustainable and set out the further initiatives that were
expected to emerge over the next year. Amongst the latter was
a proposal for a system of tyre labelling.[12]
The document
4.3 This draft Directive is the proposal foreshadowed
in the Communication, Greening transport. The Commission
says:
- the objective is to promote
improved vehicle fuel efficiency through a market driven change
towards more fuel-efficient tyres, the so-called low rolling-resistance
tyres. Reducing the rolling resistance of tyres reduces fuel consumption
and also, consequentially, carbon dioxide;
- the proposal is part of an integrated approach
to reduce fuel consumption and emissions in road transport and
other sectors;
- directed at the demand side, it is to complement
the type approval legislation on tyres, that is currently under
negotiation and remains under scrutiny, which addresses the supply
side by means of minimum requirements on tyre rolling resistance,
wet grip and external rolling noise, scheduled to take effect
from October 2012;[13]
- further improvements above these minimum levels
will be driven by the labelling scheme contained in this proposal;
- the implementation dates of this labelling scheme
and the type approval legislation are intended to coincide;
- the aim of the proposal is to build on the success
of Household Appliance Energy Labelling Directive, Directive 92/75/EEC,
by applying similar labelling requirements to tyres;
- the proposal is intended to work in coordination
with additional national measures, such as public procurement
and incentives, to achieve a dynamic shift of the market towards
more efficient products;
- tyre labelling should also play an important
part in the objective of "empowering consumers" as formulated
in the EU Consumer Policy Strategy 2007-2013[14]
by enabling consumers to make an informed choice when buying replacement
tyres; and
- the grading and labelling scheme will provide
harmonised and easy-to-understand information to consumers, companies
and retailers by grading tyre performance characteristics.
4.4 The draft Directive the Commission presents would:
- cover tyres for vehicles and
their trailers in tyre classes C1 (cars), C2 (light and medium
commercial vehicles) and C3 (heavy commercial vehicles, coaches
and buses) — some tyres are excluded, for example, temporary-use
spare tyres and studded winter tyres;
- guarantee information on tyre performance is
made available to end-users via different media, for example electronic,
catalogues, stickers;
- provide for a label similar in design to that
attached to new electrical appliances, giving the end user values
shown in bands, running from A (best) to G (worst) for rolling
resistance (all tyres) and wet grip (initially C1 tyres), and
provide a single value for noise (all tyres);
- to minimise logistics costs, provide for the
label to comprise pictograms, thus not requiring the industry
or tyre dealers to attach a dedicated sticker in all Community
official languages;
- provide for the pictograms to be explained on
a company's website;
- lay responsibilities on tyre suppliers and distributors
and car suppliers and distributors to inform the purchaser of
the grading of the tyres, by means of stickers attached to tyres,
provision of the information at points of sale where tyres are
not displayed, inclusion of information on bills of sale and inclusion
in technical brochures. This requirement applies both to replacement
tyres and tyres fitted to new vehicles;
- require Member States to adopt and publish the
laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply
with the Directive, including penalties for non-compliance, by
1 November 2011 at the latest;
- require Member States to communicate to the Commission
the text of those provisions and a correlation table between those
provisions and the Directive; and
- require Member States to apply those provisions
from 1 November 2012.
4.5 The document has annexed the Commission's impact
assessment. This shows that:
- the Commission considered five
options, ranging from doing nothing to applying the labelling
scheme for all three attributes to all three classes of tyre,
before choosing the option of a "multi-criteria" labelling
scheme for C1 tyres covering rolling resistance, wet grip, and
noise and a scheme for C2 and C3 tyres limited to rolling resistance
and noise until a test specification for wet grip for these tyres
has been finalised;
- the costs of the proposal would be marginal,
apart from the cost of transposing the Directive into national
law, as the same tests as those to be defined in the type-approval
legislation would be used to reduce the administrative burden
on industry;
- the Commission has estimated these costs at around
€0.030 (approximately 0.025p) per tyre in the worst case
and believes that labelling tyres should not increase tyre prices;
and
- the Commission believes low-budget tyres would
still be provided for sale on the market — the only change
is that objective information on tyre parameters would be provided
to consumers so that competition would not operate on price alone.
The Government's view
4.6 The Minister of State at the Department for Transport
(Lord Adonis) says that, although the Government is still considering
the policy implications of this proposal, it welcomes the principle
of providing the prospective consumer with information relating
to the environmental performance of tyres. Nevertheless, the Minister
makes a number of initial comments:
- the Government is content that
the Commission's proposal to adopt detailed comitology measures
to ensure conformity with the standards is suitable for the intended
purpose;[15]
- the Commission's preferred option includes all
characteristics for all tyres. This cannot be done before specifications
for testing the wet grip of C2 and C3 tyres have been agreed,
probably through the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe;
- in its impact assessment the Commission also
considered a complementary option — the use of economic
instruments and public procurement. In that regard, a provision
in the draft Directive would prohibit Member States from granting
incentives for tyres "below the fuel efficiency class C".
In line with the long standing objection to inclusion of fiscal
provisions in legislation under Article 95 EC, the Government
finds this provision unacceptable;
- omission of C3 tyres in the provision about responsibilities
of tyre suppliers but inclusion of banding for C3 tyres in the
related annex makes it unclear whether or not these tyres are
subject to the requirement of point-of-sale labelling;
- Member States would be required to develop their
own monitoring procedures, testing tyres for compliance with the
values declared on stickers, but the extent of the test programme
required is not specified in detail;
- this potentially imposes a significant cost burden
on governments and duplicates tests on tyres that manufacturers
are required to conduct to demonstrate conformity of production
as part of the type approval regime;
- the requirement could potentially lead to duplication
of testing between Member States and discrepancies in labelled
values in different territories;
- so the Government believes it might be more appropriate
that verification be based on auditing tyre manufacturers' conformity
of production test data;
- the comitology procedure is intended to allow
the Commission to introduce amended and adapted requirements with
respect to non-essential tyre performance parameters, but the
relevant provision refers to essential tyre performance parameters
— the Government considers that adoption of new essential
requirements by comitology may not be appropriate;
- a distributor would have to give the purchaser
information contained on the tyre label if the tyres are not visible
to the end user and to provide that information to the end user
with the bills. The Government finds this sensible, but notes
it adds another layer of documentation over and above the label,
the inclusion of information in brochures, and at points of sale;
- whilst the costs to tyre manufacturers and distributors
are very small, the need to provide information to the purchaser
on the relative performance of tyres offered on a new car may
bring additional costs to vehicle manufacturers, who will have
to ensure the rolling resistance, wet grip, and noise data of
all tyre options on all models of vehicle are made available;
- the provision that, where end-users are offered
a choice between different types of tyre on a new vehicle, car
suppliers and distributors would have to give the relevant information
to the prospective customer may lead to another layer of consumer
choice when specifying the build of a new vehicle, leading to
difficulty for industry in having to satisfy that choice;
- the proposal aims to modify tyre purchasing behaviour
through the provision of information — it does not oblige
consumers to select replacement tyres that have rolling resistance
equivalent to or better than that of the tyre fitted when the
car was new;
- in a worst case scenario for carbon dioxide reduction,
the consumer may purchase a tyre at the limit value of rolling
resistance permitted under the proposed type approval Regulation
by making an informed choice of selecting another attribute to
optimise, for example, best wet grip performance;
- so, instead of delivering a carbon dioxide reduction
through purchasing like for like tyres, the purchase of a replacement
tyre with higher rolling resistance would lead to a carbon dioxide
disbenefit;
- providing for like-for-like purchase could be
viewed as an opportunity that may need to be pursued in legislation
elsewhere, although practicality and costs of enforcing such a
requirement would need to be considered;
- the draft Directive does not include any requirement
to mark the sidewall of tyres with the information included on
the label, although this was considered in the Commission's impact
assessment. Quick identification of the performance of the tyre
would therefore not be possible. The Government is considering
whether such markings would be appropriate;
- placing markings on the sidewall would require
changes to tyre moulds. The Commission estimate the cost of this
at about €13 (approximately £11) per mould, leading
to an additional cost of a few €cents (a few pence) per tyre;
- the draft Directive provides that Member States
lay down rules on penalties applicable to infringements of the
national provisions under the proposal, that they take measures
necessary to ensure that the penalties are implemented and that
the penalties be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. The
Government finds this uncontentious;
- the proposal provides for a review of the energy
efficiency and wet grip classes after five years. Such a move
could permit the band boundaries to be changed if required, takes
into account the probability of technological progress and is
uncontentious for the Government;
- the transposition timetable is clearly intended
to align with introduction of rolling resistance and tyre wet
grip limits by means of the draft type approval Regulation. However,
under that proposal existing types of tyre would not have to meet
the mandatory requirements until 29 October 2014;
- consequently wet grip and rolling resistance
test results would only be available for all models of tyre after
this date. The labelling draft Directive does not make clear whether
prior to this date the labelling requirements can only apply to
tyres that are type-approved under the new type approval Regulation;
and
- the design of the label annexed to the draft
Directive appears sensible to the Government.
4.7 The Minister tells us that the proposal complies
with the proportionality principle. However, whilst generally
it also complies with the principle of subsidiarity, the provision
on national fiscal policy is inappropriate and unacceptable.
4.8 Finally, the Minister says that the Government
intends to conduct a public consultation on the proposal in due
course and that an impact assessment will be prepared, which will
come to us under cover of a supplementary Explanatory Memorandum
once it is agreed.
Conclusion
4.9 Clearly there is much in this draft Directive
that will need attention during negotiation. So before we consider
this matter further we wish to have from the Government, not only
the promised impact assessment and an account of the outcome of
the public consultation, but also information about developments
on the several matters the Minister has drawn to our attention,
particularly on the fiscal policy issue. Meanwhile the document
remains under scrutiny.
11 (27944) 14349/06 + ADDs 1-3: see HC 41-ii (2006-07),
chapter 8 (29 November 2006). Back
12
(29850) 11851/08 + ADD 1: see HC 16-xxx (2007-08), chapter 15
(8 October 2008). Back
13
(29713) 10099/08 + ADDs 1-2: see HC 16-xxv (2007-08), chapter
4 (25 June 2008). Back
14
(28471) 7503/07: see HC 41-xviii (2006-07), chapter 14 (25 April
2007). Back
15
Comitology is the system of committees which oversees the exercise
by the Commission of powers delegated to it by the Council and
the European Parliament. Comitology committees are made up of
representatives of the Member States and chaired by the Commission.
There are three types of procedure (advisory, management and regulatory),
an important difference between which is the degree of involvement
and power of Member States' representatives. So-called "Regulatory
with Scrutiny", introduced in July 2006, gives a scrutiny
role to the European Parliament in most applications of comitology. Back
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