12 Energy efficiency: tyres
| (a)
(30193)
15920/08
+ ADDs 1-2
COM(08) 779
(b)
(30748)
11707/1/09
COM(09) 348
|
Draft Directive on labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency and other essential parameters
Amended Draft Regulation on labelling of tyres with respect to fuel efficiency and other essential parameters
|
| Legal base | Article 95 EC; co-decision; QMV
|
| Document originated |
(b) 14 July 2009 |
| Deposited in Parliament
| (b) 7 July 2009 |
| Department | Transport
|
| Basis of consideration |
(a) SEM of 7 July 2009
(b) EM of 2 November 2009
|
| Previous Committee Report
| (a) HC 19-ii (2008-09), chapter 4 (17 December 2008)
(b) None
|
| To be discussed in Council
| Possibly 19-20 November 2009
|
| Committee's assessment |
Politically important |
| Committee's decision |
Cleared |
Background
12.1 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.[39]
12.2 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 would
be a proposal for a system of tyre labelling.[40]
12.3 The draft Directive, document (a), was the proposal
foreshadowed in the Communication, Greening transport.
The Commission said, amongst other matters, that:
· the
objective was to promote improved vehicle fuel efficiency through
a market driven change towards more fuel-efficient tyres, the
so-called low rolling-resistance tyres;
- directed at the demand side, the proposal was
to complement the type approval legislation on tyres which is
to address 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;[41]
- the implementation dates of this proposal and
the type approval legislation were intended to coincide; and
- the grading and labelling scheme in the proposal
would provide harmonised and easy-to-understand information to
consumers, companies and retailers by grading tyre performance
characteristics.
12.4 The draft Directive the Commission presented
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 were excluded, for example, temporary-use
spare tyres and studded winter tyres;
- guarantee information on tyre performance would
be 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 were
not displayed, inclusion of information on bills of sale and inclusion
in technical brochures. This requirement would apply 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.
12.5 When we considered this proposal, in December
2008, we were told that:
- although the Government was
still considering the policy implications of the proposal, it
welcomed the principle of providing the prospective consumer with
information relating the environmental performance of tyres;
- nevertheless, the Government had a fairly lengthy
list of initial comments;
- the Government thought that the proposal complied
with the proportionality principle, but whilst generally it also
complied with the principle of subsidiarity, a provision on national
fiscal policy was inappropriate and unacceptable;
- the Government intended to conduct a public consultation
on the proposal in due course; and
- an impact assessment would be prepared, which
would come to us under cover of a Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum.
12.6 We commented that clearly there was much in
the draft Directive that would need attention during negotiation.
So before we would consider the matter further we wished 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
had drawn to our attention, particularly on the fiscal policy
issue. Meanwhile the document remained under scrutiny.[42]
The new document
12.7 The draft Regulation, document (b), is an amended
proposal from the Commission based on its acceptance of either
the wording or the intent of some of the amendments made by the
European Parliament in its first reading of the original proposal.[43]
The first amendment accepted is that the proposed legislation
should take the form of a Regulation rather than a Directive.
From this flow other amendments required simply because of the
difference between a Directive and a Regulation — for example,
deletion of the provision relating to transposition. The other
amendments to the original proposal are to:
- clarify that the aim of the
proposal is to promote wet grip and external rolling noise as
well as fuel efficiency;
- clarify the definition of the "point of
sale";
- require provision of supplementary standardised
information explaining the contents of labels;
- require tyre suppliers to provide the measured
rolling resistance coefficient on technical promotional literature
for C2 and C3 tyres and to make public on their websites the declared
rolling resistance coefficient, wet grip index and external rolling
noise emissions;
- alter the requirements on tyre distributors in
relation to information supplied with a bill;
- improve the wording generally of the requirements
on tyre suppliers and distributors;
- revise a recital to emphasise that testing methods
should provide end-users with reliable and reproducible information;
- substitute provisions on market surveillance
and enforcement with a cross-reference to Regulation (EC) No 765/2008;
- allow the possibility of adaptation through comitology[44]
of the labelling scheme for the technical specificities of snow
and Nordic winter tyres;
- remove the possibility of adding through comitology
new parameters on the proposed label;
- list the matters the Commission is to cover in
the review it is to undertake five years after the application
of the legislation; and
- adding a recital encouraging tyre manufacturers,
suppliers and distributors to introduce the requirements of the
legislation before the implementation date.
The Government's view
12.8 In his Supplementary Explanatory Memorandum
of 7 July 2009, on document (a), and Explanatory Memorandum of
2 November 2009, on document (b), the Minister of State, Department
for Transport (Mr Sadiq Khan) gives us the Government's more considered
views on the proposal, an account of developments during Council
working group negotiations, an impact assessment and an account
of the Government's public consultation. He attaches to his second
memorandum a "trialogue" revised text of the draft Regulation,
document (b), based on discussions between the Swedish Presidency
and the European Parliament and on which it is expected the Presidency
will seek political agreement, possibly at a Council on 19-20
November 2009.[45] The
Minister also tells us of the Government's views on the European
Parliament's first reading amendments, noting that it considers
that the Commission had generally made the correct choices in
incorporating them.
12.9 Points of concern to the Government in the original
or subsequent texts and the resolution in the trialogue text are:
- originally there was a requirement
for self-adhesive labels to be applied to tyres to indicate their
relative performance in terms of rolling resistance, wet grip,
and noise. The Government approved of the format proposed for
the labels, but believed that the requirement that the labels
should be self-adhesive, rather than simply securely affixed,
was probably over-prescriptive. The sticker requirement itself
remains unchanged, but the trialogue text allows the alternative
of the information, in the agreed format, to accompany any batch
of identical tyres sent out by suppliers and to be drawn to the
attention of end-users by distributors;
- originally there was confusion as to whether
point of sale labelling was to apply to all types of tyre, C1,
C2, and C3, covered by the proposal. The Government thought that
the performance bands for C3 tyres were intended for use simply
in advertising materials, technical documentation, and information
supplied with sales invoices, without the point of sale labelling
requirement. It is now clear that, as the Government wishes, C3
tyres are excluded from that requirement;
- amendments are included in the trialogue text
to address the Government's concerns that information on wet grip
will not initially be available for C2 or C3 tyres and about the
format for the provision of such information, which is now at
the discretion of distributors;
- the Government considered the proposed requirement
that vehicle suppliers should provide information, on the worst
combination of the rolling resistance, wet grip and noise from
all tyres, where different tyres are fitted to a vehicle but the
consumer is not offered a choice of tyre, to be burdensome, unreasonable,
and likely to be counter-productive. It secured deletion of this
requirement, however it was unsuccessful in preventing extension
of the provision of information requirements from car dealers
to van and lorry dealers also. But, on balance the Government
regards the revised text of the relevant article as acceptable;
- Presidency discussions with the European Parliament
led to the addition of a graphic in the label showing one of three
noise categories met by the tyre in addition to the originally
proposed noise value, which the Government welcomes as an improvement
to consumer understanding;
- Government concerns that tyre testing requirements
would add additional burdens for both Member States and manufacturers
have been mitigated somewhat by agreement that labelling requirements
will not apply to tyres manufactured before July 2012 and amendments
to the annex on verification procedures;
- the original proposal prohibited Member States
from providing financial incentives for tyres in the higher rolling
resistance categories 'D' to 'G'. The Government considered that
this would breach the principle of fiscal sovereignty and seriously
restrict future national flexibility. Moreover the scope of the
fiscal incentives would have been amendable through comitology.
In the event there was general support for the Government's opposition
and the trialogue text explicitly indicates that taxation and
fiscal measures do not constitute incentives for the purpose of
the draft Regulation;
- the use of comitology to decide technical matters
is uncontroversial, however there appeared to be a suggestion
in the original text that essential tyre performance parameters
might be dealt with in the same way. The Government believed that
this would be inappropriate and intended to seek a clarification
and the trialogue text defines the Commission's powers more clearly,
so meeting the Government's concerns;
- as proposed by the European Parliament the range
of the review of the Regulation the Commission is to present by
March 2015 has been expanded so as to permit assessment of the
effectiveness and scope of the legislation, including the effectiveness
of the alternative labelling options, rather than limiting the
review to simply addressing the technical question of the rolling
resistance bands. The Government welcomes these amendments which
will ensure that the effectiveness of the measure is properly
reviewed, particularly in respect of the labelling options, and
conforms to the principles of better regulation; and
- the trialogue text clarifies that the proposal
is expected to produce safety and economic, as well as environmental,
benefits and now excludes racing tyres.
12.10 Commenting on the Government's impact assessment
the Minister says that:
- the Government's best judgement
is that the proposal delivers net costs to the UK without costs
to the Government;
- the net present value is in the range of -£176
million to -£8 million;
- although overall costs exceed benefits, the Government
estimates costs to industry to be relatively small;
- costs are comprised primarily of additional expenditure
incurred voluntarily by consumers choosing to purchase better-performing
tyres;
- the Government's analysis suggests that, when
considered from the consumer's point of view, the savings made
on fuel (if fuel duty is included) from switching to tyres with
a lower rolling resistance will outweigh the cost of the upgrade;
and
- the main monetised benefits are fuel and carbon
dioxide savings.
12.11 On the Government's public consultation, which
was held between 14 May and 7 August 2009, the Minister says that:
- in line with the Government's
view, respondents were generally supportive of the provision of
information to consumers throughout the purchasing process as
a means of informing choice and driving change;
- some argued for extension of the information
provided and/or for an associated programme of education or for
inclusion of the information on tyre sidewalls (this later point
was rejected by the European Parliament and by most Member States);
- a few expressed concerns about the apparent emphasis
on the environment which they felt could be at the expense of
safety, particularly for C2 and C3 tyres, for which no safety
testing criteria were yet available;
- some respondents, including representatives of
the tyre industry, thought that provision of information at the
point of sale would be a more proportionate and effective means
of communicating information than a label attached to the tyre,
especially if this could be done electronically — tyres
were not usually visible to consumers at retail outlets and labels
were sometimes detached;
- the Local Authorities Coordinators of Regulatory
Services also thought this option would be least difficult to
enforce (this approach is permitted, as an optional alternative
to labelling of every tyre, in the trialogue text);
- representatives of the road freight industry
were divided as to the merits of labelling for C3 (heavy vehicle)
tyres. One body considered that the information was already taken
into account by many commercial vehicle operators, another supported
provision of information but thought that it could confuse operators
making choices as to the optimal tyre for their purposes;
- representatives of motor manufacturers were opposed
to the provision of information on tyre performance on new vehicles
arguing that it had no direct link to overall vehicle performance
in areas such as fuel consumption and noise and could be confusing
to consumers making choices on new vehicles;
- one thought that burdens could be reduced by
allowing dealers to provide information by electronic means and
only for the worst performing tyres where choices of size or rim
were offered;
- representatives of the tyre industry expressed
concerns that additional testing to provide or verify the labelled
information should not be required over and above that undertaken
for type approving tyres to the relevant standards; and
- respondents also drew attention to the role of
appropriate and dissuasive penalties and to the need for clarity
in defining the media to which the technical promotional literature
requirements applied.
12.12 The Minister asserts that in the negotiations
the Government has been successful in achieving its objectives
in a number of areas, notably on exclusion of requirements in
relation to fiscal incentives, and considers the package developed
in the trialogue to be a reasonable resolution to the negotiations.
Conclusion
12.13 We are grateful to the Minister for his
account of where matters stand on this proposal. We note that
the Government has been able to have the unacceptable fiscal aspect
of the original text rejected and regards the trialogue text as
a reasonable outcome to the negotiations. We have no further questions
to ask and now clear both documents.
39 (27944) 14349/06 + ADDs 1-3: see HC 41-ii (2006-07),
chapter 8 (29 November 2006). Back
40
(29850) 11851/08 + ADD 1: see HC 16-xxx (2007-08), chapter 15
(8 October 2008). Back
41
(29713) 10099/08 + ADDs 1-2: see HC 16-xxv (2007-08), chapter
4 (25 June 2008), HC 19-iv (2008-09), chapter 8 (21 January 2009)
and HC 19-x (2008-09), chapter 5 (11 March 2009). Back
42
See headnote. Back
43
For all of the proposed amendments see http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?type=TA&reference=P6-TA-2009-0248&language=EN&ring=A6-2009-0218.
Back
44
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
45
See http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st14/st14024.en09.pdf.
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