3 Fuel quality
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12049/13
COM(13) 456
| Commission Report concerning Article 8a of Directive 98/70/EC relating to the quality of petrol and diesel fuels and amending Council Directive 93/12/EEC
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| Legal base | —
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| Department | Transport
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| Basis of consideration | Minister's letter of 25 March 2014
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| Previous Committee Report | HC 83-xiv (2013-14), chapter 8 (11 September 2013)
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| Discussion in Council | None
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| Committee's assessment | Politically important
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| Committee's decision | Cleared
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Background
3.1 Directive 98/70/EC as amended controls certain
parameters of petrol and diesel fuels for which limits need to
be set for environmental reasons. Article 8a of the Directive
deals with metallic fuel additives. In particular, it sets "precautionary"
limits for the content of methylcyclopentadienyl manganese tricarbonyl
(MMT) in fuel. These limits are set at six milligrammes per litre
from January 2011, and at two milligrammes per litre, which is
an effective ban, from January 2014. The precautionary limits
were included in the Directive in response to calls from the European
Parliament and some Member States for an outright ban on the use
of manganese-containing additives because of the recognised toxic
effects of manganese.
3.2 Article 8a places an obligation upon the Commission
to develop a test methodology and to produce, by 31 December 2012,
a report on the risks to health and the environment posed by metallic
additives in fuel. It allows the limits on MMT to be changed
through a comitology process if justified by an assessment produced
by the test methodology.
3.3 In June 2013 the Commission presented this Report
as a response to Article 8a of the Directive. It set out the background
to the issue and the reasons for concern about the impacts of
metallic additives. It reported development, by the Commission's
Joint Research Centre, of a test methodology and outlined the
way in which it might be applied. It included an undertaking
by the Commission to monitor application of the methodology and
to take appropriate action.
3.4 When we considered the document, in September
2013, we heard the Government's view that it did not fulfil the
Commission's obligation to produce a report on the risks to health
and the environment posed by metallic additives in fuel and that
any long term limits for MMT should be based on a scientific assessment
of the risks for health and the environment. We noted the Government's
justifiable view that any limitation of MMT use should be based
on scientific evidence of risks to health or the environment and
asked to know what response there had been from the Commission
to the Government's view that the document did not meet the obligation
to report an assessment of such risks. Meanwhile the document
remained under scrutiny.[10]
The Minister's letter of 25 March 2014
3.5 The Minister of State, Department for Transport
(Baroness Kramer) tells us that:
· the Government has discussed this issue
with the Commission;
· its understanding of the text of the Directive
is rather different from the Government's;
· the Commission believes itself, in fact,
to have discharged its obligations because the report concludes
that the use of metallic fuel additives involves a potential risk
to health and the environment, even though it does not quantify
that risk;
· whilst the Government view is that the
Commission has misread the text dealing with this issue, it is
of the opinion that there is little to be gained in pursuing this
question at this stage, when the effective ban that the Directive
imposes on the MMT additive is already in place; and
· the Government's position has always been
that it objected to the Commission ignoring the requirement for
it to perform a study prior to the effective ban on MMT actually
coming into force, rather than that it necessarily objected to
the ban itself.
3.6 The Minister continues that:
· the Commission did, in fact, come forward
recently with a proposal for a Commission Directive to reinstate
the previous, higher, limit for MMT;
· it did this in response to a study commissioned
by Afton Chemical Company, which is the sole producer of MMT,
which concluded that the product is harmless to health and the
environment and causes no damage to vehicles;
· the Commission withdrew its proposal,
however, in the face of overwhelming opposition from Member States
to a reinstatement of the higher limit; and
· the consensus amongst those Member States
that expressed a view was that the higher limit offered no benefits
that would seem to justify even a low direct risk to public health
and certainly none that would justify putting improvements in
air quality at risk.
3.7 The Minister comments further that:
· although the Afton Chemical Company has
a presence in the UK, the product is neither made nor used in
significant quantities here;
· the Government is inclined to the view
that the direct risks to health from MMT are probably low;
· vehicle manufacturers and suppliers of
exhaust after treatment devices are, however, strongly opposed
to the use of MMT, arguing that their own evidence is that its
long-term use will damage exhaust after treatment systems and
lead to increased vehicle emissions; and
· against this background, the Government
welcomes the withdrawal of the Commission's proposal.
Conclusion
3.8 We are grateful to the Minister for this information
and now clear the document.
10 See headnote. Back
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