RECOMMENDATION FOR SECOND READING on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 76/115/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to anchorages for motor-vehicle safety belts

27.4.2005 - (11933/3/2004 – C6‑0030/2005 – 2003/0136(COD)) - ***II

Committee on Transport and Tourism
Rapporteur: Paolo Costa

DRAFT EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT LEGISLATIVE RESOLUTION

on the Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 76/115/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to anchorages for motor-vehicle safety belts

(11933/3/2004 – C6‑0030/2005 – 2003/0136(COD))

(Codecision procedure: second reading)

The European Parliament,

–   having regard to the Council common position (11933/3/2004 – C6‑0030/2005),

–   having regard to its position at first reading on the Commission proposal to Parliament and the Council (COM(2003)0362),

–   having regard to Article 251(2) of the EC Treaty,

–   having regard to Rule 62 of its Rules of Procedure,

–   having regard to the recommendation for second reading of the Committee on Transport and Tourism (A6‑0117/2005),

1.  Approves the common position as amended;

2.  Instructs its President to forward its position to the Council and Commission.

Council common position	Amendments by Parliament
Amendment 1 RECITAL 9 A (new)
	(9a) Exemptions granted by the competent authorities of Member States for vehicles designed as conference buses and produced in small series or as individual vehicles should be automatically recognised in the other Member States as far as the use, sale and registration of those vehicles is concerned.
Justification
Exemptions granted on a national basis which can, but do not have to be accepted by other national authorities can create a distortion of the market for the producers of the vehicles concerned, create much red tape for national administration and cause uncertainty for the users of these vehicles. Automatic recognition of these exemptions would not only eliminate these inconveniences but also provide an incentive for national authorities to proceed very carefully when granting exemptions.
Amendment 2 ARTICLE 1, POINT 1 A (new) Article 5 a (new) (Directive 76/115/EEC)
	1a) The following Article shall be inserted:
	"Article 5a
	The Commission and the Member States shall take the necessary steps to ensure that exemptions for vehicles of category M3 designed as conference buses granted by the competent authority of a Member State pursuant to Article 8(2)(a) of Directive 70/156/EEC are recognised by the competent authorities of the other Member States as far as the use, sale and registration of those vehicles is concerned.".
Justification
Exemptions granted on a national basis which can, but do not have to be accepted by other national authorities can create a distortion of the market for the producers of the vehicles concerned, create much red tape for national administration and cause uncertainty for the users of these vehicles. Automatic recognition of these exemptions would not only eliminate these inconveniences but also provide an incentive for national authorities to proceed very carefully when granting exemptions.
Amendment 3 ARTICLE 1, POINT 2, POINT B A (new) Annex I, point 4.3.2 (Directive 76/115/EEC)
	ba) Point 4.3.2 shall be amended as follows:
	4.3.2 The minimum number of safety belt anchorages for each seating position shall be as specified in Appendix 1.
Justification
Follows on necessarily from the amendment to Directive 74/408/EEC relating to motor vehicles with regard to the seats, their anchorages and head restraints.
Amendment 4 ARTICLE 1, POINT 2, POINT C A (new) Annex I, point 5.4.6 (Directive 76/115/EEC)
	ca) The title of point 5.4.6 shall be amended as follows:
	5.4.6 Test in the case of rearward- and side-facing seats
Justification
This is a necessary consequence of the amendment to Directive 74/408/EEC relating to motor vehicles with regard to the seats, their anchorages and head restraints.

Amendment 5

ARTICLE 1, POINT 2, POINT C B (new)

Annex I, Appendix 1, table (Directive 76/115/EEC)

Vehicle category	Forward facing seating positions				Rear facing	Side facing
	Outboard		Centre
	Front	Other	Front	Other
M1	3	3 or 2 Æ	3 or 2 *	2	2	-
M2 < 3,5 t	3	3	3	3	2	-
M2 > 3,5 t	3 ☼	3 or 2 z	3 or 2 z	3 or 2 z	2	-
M3	3 ☼	3 or 2 z	3 or 2 z	3 or 2 z	2	2
N1, N2 & N3	3	2 or 0 #	3 or 2 *	2 or 0 #	-	-

Justification

This is a necessary consequence of the amendment to Directive 74/408/EEC relating to motor vehicles with regard to the seats, their anchorages and head restraints systems.

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

1. General framework

· The measures proposed by the Commission form part of a package of three proposals, which should be kept together and treated in parallel because modifications in one proposal (for the sake of coherence) have automatic repercussions on the two others.

This proposal concerns basically the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the anchorages for safety belts in other motor vehicles than passenger cars. Currently Community law requires the installation of safety belts and the safe anchorages of these belts only in passenger cars (M₁ category). The Commission proposes here to include also the categories M₂ (mini-buses with maximum 8 passengers + driver), M₃ (bigger buses and coaches, except city buses) and the N category covering N₁ (light commercial vehicles of up to 3.5 tonnes), N₂ (medium commercial vehicles of between 3.5 and 16 tonnes) and N₃ (heavy commercial vehicles over 16 tonnes).

· This proposal fits into the broader action programme launched by the Commission and approved by the EP, aimed at bringing down the number of road fatalities as it has been outlined in the White-book for the European Transport policy for 2010 (COM(2001)370).

· More specifically, following several serious accidents with buses on the 8^th May 2003 in Hungary (33 victims), on 18^th May 2003 in Lyon (28 victims), the chairman of the EP's Committee on Regional Policy, Transport and Tourism, Mr Caveri, tabled a resolution (B5-0338/2003) on behalf of this Committee, asking in its paragraph 6 the Commission to make legislative proposals to modify directives 77/541/EEC, 74/408/EEC and 75/115/EEC in the sense to render mandatory the installation of safety belts in coaches and in paragraph 7 the mandatory use of safety belts in tourist coaches.

· With this last request the EP stimulated a legislative process which was already under way, i.e. the modification of Directive 91/671/EEC for which Mrs Hedkvist Petersen was the RETT committee's rapporteur. By adopting this report in second reading, the EP agreed with the Council as a matter of principle on the mandatory use of safety belts wherever they are installed.

· The next step is now to extend the number of vehicle categories where safety belts have to be installed and thus will have to be used. Moreover, their fixations (anchorages) have to comply with stricter requirements because, unlike safety belts in passenger cars which are fixed on the chassis of the car, safety belts in buses are fixed to the seats which in their turn have to withstand considerable kinetic forces in case of an accident and have to be reinforced accordingly. This is what this coherent package of three proposals is aiming at.

· It is important to mention that the provisions contained in this proposal in many Member States are already in force but purely on the basis of national legislation. Consequently, this proposal (see Appendix attached to the Commission text) can be considered as a regularisation on an EU level of an existing situation.

· It is equally important to notice that for the M₃ category (class III and B-buses) Member States can grant exemptions for small series of vehicles. This possibility remains unaffected even after the entry into force of these three directives, and provides already the flexibility the EP had been asking for in first reading.

2. The Common position

· In the Common Position which was adopted unanimously, the Council:

- has modified Article 1, in order to allow Member States to exempt anchorages for safety belts and for restrain systems intended for disabled people from compliance with the provisions of the Directive;

- has added a new article to invite the Commission to examine specific procedures to harmonize the requirements for disabled people;

- has postponed the various dates of entry into force in Article 3;

- has rejected the four EP amendments, aiming in Article 1 at fitting anchorages for a two-point belt on side-facing seats in tourist coaches, since the Council shares the Commission's view regarding the danger of side-facing seats in all kinds of vehicles.

3. The rapporteur's comments

· The rapporteur takes the view that safety should be the overriding consideration. Until now no satisfactory restraint system for side-facing seats offering the same level of protection as for front or rear-facing seats is on the market.

This view is completely in line with the requests made in resolution B5-0338/2003, para 6 and 7. To allow explicitly side-facing seats would be not an appropriate political signal.

· However, it is important to recognise that there are specific needs in the market which require exemptions. Until now these exemptions (in this case side-facing seats) were granted by the national authorities for small series of vehicles or even individual vehicles, pursuant to article 1 and 8 of directive 70/156/EEC, modified by directive 92/53/EEC. Even after the adoption of this proposal for a directive, directive 70/156/EEC remains in force and the possibility to grant exemptions will continue to exist (see point 1, last paragraph). The mutual recognition for these exemptions would mean that many legal uncertainties will be eliminated for both producers and users of these special type of M₃ buses and will probably lead to the setting of common minimum technical standards.

PROCEDURE

Title	The Council common position for adopting a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Council Directive 76/115/EEC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to anchorages for motor-vehicle safety belts
References	11933/3/2004 – C6-0030/2005 – 2003/0136(COD)
Legal basis	Articles 251(2) and 95 EC
Basis in Rules of Procedure	Rule 62
Date of Parliament’s first reading – P[5]	17.12.2003		P5_TA(2003)0583
Commission proposal	COM(2003)0362 – C5-0286/2003
Amended Commission proposal	COM(2004)0768
Date receipt of common position announced in plenary	27.1.2005
Committee responsible   Date announced in plenary	TRAN 26.1.2005
Rapporteur(s)   Date appointed	Paulo Costa 26.1.2005
Previous rapporteur(s)
Discussed in committee	2.2.2005	16.3.2005				18.4.2005
Date adopted	19.4.2005
Result of final vote	for: against: abstentions:			29 0 13
Members present for the final vote	Margrete Auken, Inés Ayala Sender, Etelka Barsi-Pataky, Philip Bradbourn, Sylwester Chruszcz, Paolo Costa, Michael Cramer, Luis de Grandes Pascual, Christine De Veyrac, Armando Dionisi, Petr Duchoň, Saïd El Khadraoui, Robert Evans, Mathieu Grosch, Ewa Hedkvist Petersen, Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, Stanisław Jałowiecki, Georg Jarzembowski, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Jaromír Kohlíček, Jörg Leichtfried, Bogusław Liberadzki, Evelin Lichtenberger, Erik Meijer, Janusz Onyszkiewicz, Josu Ortuondo Larrea, Willi Piecyk, Luís Queiró, Reinhard Rack, Luca Romagnoli, Gilles Savary, Ingo Schmitt, Renate Sommer, Dirk Sterckx, Ulrich Stockmann, Gary Titley, Marta Vincenzi, Corien Wortmann-Kool, Roberts Zīle
Substitutes present for the final vote	Den Dover, Willem Schuth
Substitutes under Rule 178(2) present for the final vote
Date tabled – A6	27.4.2005		A6-0117/2005
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