45th Report of Session 2013-14 - European Scrutiny Committee Contents


3 Fuel quality

(35171)

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
Legal base
DepartmentTransport
Basis of considerationMinister's letter of 25 March 2014
Previous Committee ReportHC 83-xiv (2013-14), chapter 8 (11 September 2013)
Discussion in CouncilNone
Committee's assessmentPolitically important
Committee's decisionCleared

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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