Verbatim report of proceedings

Wednesday, 10 February 1999 - Strasbourg

14. End‐of‐life vehicles

  President . – The next item is the report (A4‐0051/99) by Mr Florenz, on behalf of the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection, on the proposal for a Council Directive on end‐of‐life vehicles (COM(97)0358 – C4‐0639/97‐97/0194(SYN)).

  Florenz (PPE), rapporteur. – (DE) Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, eight or nine million or cars a year are discarded in the European Community. That calls for rules, and I think it was high time the European Commission addressed this issue. I was a little annoyed to find that in this very important area, which is important not just to environment policy but also to economic policy, we received a proposal from the Commission that contained no annexes, or rather annexes that were empty. For we know that the annexes are the crux of the matter. Normally we have tended to send this kind of proposal back. But since we have started, we may as well try to go on with our endeavour.

I believe this directive has set a good course. There are some areas where it needs tightening up a bit. And in some areas it is very strict. In committee we decided by a fairly substantial majority to concentrate only on two‐ and three‐wheeled vehicles, unlike the Commission, which wants to set out broader rules. The object of this directive is to ensure that in future vehicles that have reached the end of their life can only be deregistered on production of a certificate of destruction, which may sound very good at first, but which is in my view rather difficult to achieve, in some Member States at least. A little more work needs be done here and we have made a few proposals to that end. Article 6 concerns the treatment of end‐of‐life vehicles. I believe here too a few nuances are needed, but basically we will follow the Commission line.

Another point I do not entirely understand is how the costs will be distributed in future in Europe. The Commissioner reverted to a rather fuddy‐duddy approach and opted for no costs for the last owner and/or user. No doubt that sounds quite interesting to a politician, especially when elections are on the horizon. But no costs for the last user either, that can never be! That is a fallacy. I think we have overlooked the fact that no costs will automatically lead to a monopoly and, as we all know all too well, monopolies always lead to concentration processes, which are always a bad thing!

That really will drive the small and medium‐sized enterprises that we keep supporting and praising in our electioneering speeches out of the market. Jobs will be lost. It will cut the regional incomes of our petrol stations, of our garages. After all I would not drive to some posh body repair shop to have my car deregistered, I would go to my local dealer who lives in my village and has been looking after my car for years. I believe that is the wrong approach. My proposal is that the Member States should be responsible, together with the economic operators involved, i.e. the manufacturer, recoverer, shredder, last owner, etc., for developing a system at their own cost that will where possible involve no cost for the last owner, but not par ordre de moufti . I think an insurance system like the one for motor vehicles, where everyone pays in one euro a month, would be quite a good solution. That would certainly have been in my amendment.

There is a second point – and here for once I agree with the Commissioner, in fact I am quite enthusiastic – and that is the very exacting recovery targets.

These very exacting recovery targets will without doubt require the industry to make quite an effort. And that is a good thing, for we have a great number – hundreds of thousands, millions – of cars in Europe and obviously we want to go on having them. But precisely because we want to have them, we also need sensible recovery quotas. I believe the committee has moved in the wrong direction here, because it has accepted an amendment by a colleague of mine, whom I normally hold in very high regard, that prescribes that nothing more will be done until the year 2020.

If I am interpreting that amendment correctly, then in future the motor industry will only have to ensure that there are no passengers in the car; apart from that, it can send the car to the shredder and do whatever it wants. That is not environmentally friendly, and you know that this is something I keep a very close eye on. I believe the Commission"s approach is a little too harsh, but if it could be toned down a little the basic principle would be right.

It is precisely because we have nine million tonnes of scrap cars that we need recycling rules. We turned the whole of Europe upside down for one ridiculous little package and introduced packaging regulations for it. We are now deciding on the labelling to go with this packaging regulation – the rapporteur is sitting behind me. So if we fix a recycling quota for such a small matter, then we surely also need to have recycling quotas for nine million tonnes of scrap cars, and certainly before the year 2020. I do not think this is acceptable! A lot of lobbying is going on here, but we will put a stop to it.

We may quarrel about the ban on hazardous substances. The Commission has proposed values and parameters which, in my view, are very tough. In this field too we are now seeing an enormous expansion. I would stick to the Commission"s principle and propose a combined committee made up of Directorates‐General III and XII, which would make a critical, scientifically sound proposal after three years on whether these tough rules need to be maintained and implemented. I know it is sacrilege to invite DG III and DG XII to the same table, but I do not think it is such a bad idea.

Some people want to ban PVC. I cannot judge the merits of that. I am not an expert in chemistry. But if PVC is dangerous, then all this junk should be banned in a horizontal directive and not stigmatised in an individual secondary directive. The Commission needs to hurry up here, and that is where you, Mrs Bjerregaard, come in. I know you have some very important colleagues who are slowing this whole business down. It is up to you to see to this horizontal directive. This kind of thing cannot be regulated in the directive we have here. That is stigmatisation, and I do not think it is right.

I am a passionate supporter of voluntary agreements. If there are Member States which dispose of their old cars in line with the objectives of the European directives then, for God"s sake, provided they can be monitored, we should also allow them to retain their voluntary agreements. Instructions from above are always a second best.

  Bowe (PSE), draftsman of the opinion of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy. – Mr President, in this debate it falls to me to represent the views of the committee which has offered an opinion to the Environment Committee which, I have to say, was very favourably received, and I thank the rapporteur and the members of the committee for accepting many of our amendments. I can, therefore, commend the report itself to the House, on behalf of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

In relation to that report we do not just have to take on board the importance of the ideas expressed by Mr Florenz about recycling – endorse them though I do. He is absolutely correct: there are large tonnages of waste coming from cars every year. Much of it is not metal and much of it has to be dealt with under very difficult circumstances. We need a serious and proper approach to it. Certainly one of the outcomes of this would be a more orderly market‐place, one in which recycling takes place, not in the traditional scrapyard, which we are all familiar with, but in a proper recycling facility which will create employment opportunities and the kind of jobs which are so sorely lacking in many parts of the Union and which will isolate the metals and other substances from cars and put them to good economic use.

There are two issues we cannot ignore and I would press on the House. The first is the issue of leaded steel. We have some amendments before us tonight which recognise the difficulties involved in removing certain metals from cars completely; I hope we will endorse those amendments tonight to ensure that the recycling of cars is done in an environmentally friendly way that does not require additional expenditure of energy which, if we took out all the metals referred to by the Commission, would be needed.

In addition, I should like to point out that it is very important from the point of view of the final consumer that take‐back is free of charge – perhaps the consumer could even receive the deposit back, but take‐back must be free of charge. That is very important if we are to ensure that the system functions effectively.

  Lange (PSE). – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are aiming at two major objectives with this directive. First, we want to dispose of these eight million vehicles properly and, secondly, we want to dump as few as possible as landfill. The question is: how do we achieve that? I believe that first we must guarantee take‐back free of charge to the last owner, and for several reasons, one of which is of course social. For it is surely not acceptable to penalise the last owner in this way. Many others have had the benefit of this car; many others have driven it. The manufacturers sold it, of course, so they also benefited from it. So if we take this approach we must distribute the cost fairly among everyone and not just foist it on the last owner. That is why I say: no charge for the last owner. How the Member States apply that is of course their business. There is the Dutch system, there is the German system, the French system – I do not want to lay down any rules. It is the principle that concerns me.

And there is a second reason. What, I ask you, is happening today in countries where disposal is either self‐financing or is cost free? In those countries used cars are stored illegally or exported to the east. Surely that cannot be our waste‐disposal policy! In Germany some 50 % of used cars are transported in an exodus to the east. So it is quite clear to me that we must insist on freedom of charge. Nor will that spell the death of small and medium‐sized enterprises. After all, what does the motor industry do in the case of services, of supply contracts? It invites tenders and there is competition. The same will apply to the recovery of old cars.

However, and this is my second point, I believe we must draw a distinction between old and new cars. After all, we cannot expect a car that was built 20 years ago to satisfy today"s requirements. That would be like saying that a 20‐year‐old car had to meet the Euro 4 standard for 2005 under the current legislation on exhaust gas. So we must ensure that as few old cars as possible are dumped, but we certainly cannot lay down what quota is to be recovered in what way. Just imagine in real life: an old car is taken to the shredder, goes through the shredder; at most you can determine the weight before and after, but not how the individual materials are used – that is quite absurd. It would mean that the very people who keep fighting bureaucracy would have to set up an enormous monitoring system for old cars which would be impossible to verify.

I think we should only decide on matters that we can also guarantee and verify. So for old cars we can restrict the materials that may be dumped, but not set a sub‐quota on how they may be used. For new cars, however, which are being manufactured now, we need an ambitious system to ensure that they are as recycling‐friendly as possible. So in that case I am in favour of a type approval that lays down such quotas. There we can carry out checks, as we do with the crash test, as we do for exhaust gas emissions. For new cars we must apply stringent reuse and recycling requirements.

After all, the question of application is the key question. Mr Florenz said, in his nice way, that we would be taking a softer line and the directive would only apply from the year 2020. Let me tell him, that is total rubbish! We say the directive should apply immediately, and to all cars. Regardless of how they are serviced, regardless of any spare parts they contain – all cars must be taken back and recovered free of cost at once, not just in 2005, as the Commissioner proposes. So we are taking a more stringent line.

Secondly, we say that the type approval rules as from 2005 must provide in precise terms that new cars must be recycling‐friendly. That too makes this legislation more stringent. That means, to put it mildly, that it is not right of Mr Florenz to say that we would be watering down these Commission proposals in any respect at all. On the contrary, we are following a different system. But I am firmly convinced that we are tightening up the Commission proposal for the sake of environmental protection and consumer protection and moving it in the right direction. It is quite obvious to me that we need clarification on the question of heavy metals, which is why we must now make it clear once and for all in what areas we want or do not want heavy metals.

  Grossetête (PPE). – (FR) Mr President, the proposed directive under discussion is particularly important and concerns all of us as users of motor vehicles.

I am not going to go over the ground covered by my colleagues Mr Florenz and Mr Lange, but will instead mention a few points which I feel are essential.

Firstly, some people are calling for a ban on PVC, but we must be consistent. Calling for a ban on PVC is in complete contradiction with our recent call to vehicle manufacturers to build vehicles that consume less and therefore have lower levels of emissions. It is common knowledge that if vehicles cannot use PVC, they will be heavier and will therefore consume more. So we must be consistent.

On the other hand, I totally agree with Amendment No 34 tabled by Mr Lange. In my opinion, it is essential to make a clear distinction between old and new vehicles that will receive type approval before and after 2005 respectively. At least this gives vehicle manufacturers an idea of the constraints to be imposed on them after 2005.

Finally, it is essential to carry out a risk assessment of the materials and substances included in Annex II. In my opinion, it would be better to assess these risks and, if a risks exists, to then look at the exemptions that could be granted. That would allow us, in this case, to achieve an appropriate balance between the environment and the motor industry.

These are the points which I feel are particularly important if we are to find a solution to a problem that is sweeping through our entire industrial society. I sincerely hope that appropriate solutions can be found to solve this problem of end‐of‐life vehicles, particularly since we are now all aware of it.

  Olsson (ELDR). – (SV) Mr President, Commissioner, I should like to say that I was impressed by this proposal for a directive. Mr Florenz has also done his work well, although I would actually rate his work in other areas more highly than in this one. He has not been quite as tough as he has tended to be in other circumstances. The Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection has, however, sharpened up the directive and I sincerely hope that the Commission will now approve it.

I should like to mention one or two points. It is abundantly clear that there should be some form of manufacturer responsibility for cars as well. It would therefore be reasonable for manufacturers to bear the major share of the responsibility, but in point of fact the consumer alone foots the bill; it is always the consumer who has to pay. However, the final consumer should be able to get rid of his or her car free of charge. I believe that this is necessary if the scheme is to work. There should also be quotas and rules regarding the quantities to be recycled using different methods.

As regards new cars, far more stringent criteria need to be introduced as quickly as possible. We know the industry often claims that to do so would be impossibly difficult or expensive, but it then goes on to do just that. In a number of different areas, the industry has shown that it is capable of making the necessary adaptations. Bearing in mind that cars eventually have to be scrapped, environmentally unfriendly materials such as lead, mercury, chromium and cadmium should be eliminated, that much is patently clear. My group and I also think that the same should apply to PVC, since if we allow it in cars, it is never going to be clear to people that we want to eliminate this material, only we have to wait for a horizontal directive in order to do so. You cannot explain such things to ordinary people. In all probability it is only our politicians who understand them. Consequently, I think it should be included in this proposal.

  d"Aboville (UPE). – (FR) Mr President, I have two initial remarks to make. The first concerns so‐called ‘historic" vehicles. In a limited number of cases, these vehicles are kept by their owners either for restoration or as a source of spares. They are part of our industrial heritage and their preservation must be encouraged. We therefore fully support Amendment No 1 tabled by the rapporteur.

My second remark concerns two‐wheel vehicles, which cannot be regarded as a threat to the environment for the simple reason that the concepts of ‘end of life" and ‘discarding" do not apply to them. Although a few may attain the hallowed status of historic vehicles, the ruthless world of two wheels is typified by cannibalism as parts are easy to strip off and many owners carry out maintenance and minor repairs themselves. Two‐wheel vehicles are therefore generally stripped and their components naturally reused.

I must also highlight Amendment No 53 which concerns the recycling or recovery percentages. It maintains our ambitious objectives but, based on the experience of the ‘packaging" directive, it pragmatically provides for the option to periodically review these objectives and alter them if necessary. We will also support Amendment No 54 which rightly stipulates that the free recovery of vehicles will not be backdated.

On the other hand, we will vote against Amendment No 21, which would ban the use of PVC, for three reasons. Firstly, the usefulness of this material is indisputable. Secondly, it is an anticorrosive product which extends the life of vehicles, reduces their weight and thereby has a positive impact on consumption and pollution, as indicated by Mrs Grossetête. And thirdly, the majority of PVC is reused or recycled and it would therefore be particularly illogical to move away from the Commission"s horizontal approach in this respect.

  Breyer (V). – (DE) Mr President, this proposal for a directive is a stroke of luck for the environment, since assigning responsibility to the manufacturer was long overdue and it was also high time waste prevention applied to the motor vehicle sector too. I am glad the Committee on the Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection also stood up for freedom of charge to the last user. I very much regret that Mr Florenz has expressed his personal view here rather than that of the Environment Committee. I hope that tomorrow Members will also stand by their amendment on banning PVC from the year 2005.

I find it shocking to hear that there are obviously plans to bow to the PVC industry here tomorrow! And let me tell Mrs Grossetête and others that we are not talking about banning plastic. We are talking about banning PVC, about products involving chlorine. There is actually a bioplastic and other plastic materials. The argument she put forward was quite absurd and I must say that unfortunately that shows that she was not well‐informed and that obviously this is merely a question of arguments ...

(The President cut the speaker off)

  Jensen, Kirsten (PSE). – (DA) Mr President, problems with end‐of‐life vehicles which are to be scrapped are largely due to the way they are produced. That is why we should both ensure that vehicle parts are reused and that specially harmful substances are not used in the new generation of vehicles. That brings us to PVC. Like other Members, I wonder what the Commission intends to do about this. As we know, PVC is not the solution of the future, even though in the material it sends us, the PVC industry tries to distort the Swedish PVC action plan, for example, so as to persuade us that the Swedes think PVC is a health product which everyone should have more of. In fact, they do not think that at all. PVC has a wide range of applications, but its disposal creates environmental problems. PVC produces even more waste after incineration than the amount that was sent to the incineration plant. Incinerated PVC produces dioxins, which are among the most dangerous toxins that exist. In addition, the plasticisers used in PVC, the so‐called phthalates, are suspected of being hormone interferers, and in legislation which is geared to the future we must observe the precautionary principle.

Every time that PVC is involved in a proposal for a directive, we are told that this problem in particular cannot be looked at on its own or vertically, but that we should look at it globally and horizontally, and that the Commission will do the thinking for us. As far as I am aware, it has been meaning to do so since the 1980s. Today the Commission must tell us when it will take an initiative in the area of PVC, because that will have a bearing on the way we vote tomorrow.

  Rübig (PPE). – (DE) Mr President, I want to congratulate Mr Florenz because reuse really should be given priority; but I also want to say absolutely no to the PVC ban because we do not yet know of any viable alternatives. To include the collection of used parts from repaired cars would involve the entire garage waste disposal system and in the final analysis that has nothing to do with the directive. Take‐back free of charge would also destroy market forces and, above all, would exclude existing firms from the recovery chain and produce expensive bureaucratic obstacles to trade.

On Amendment No 42 I would say it is a positive sign for environmental agreements because with many agreements on end‐of‐life vehicles in Europe compliance tends to be concentrated on just a few articles. On Amendment No 44: in my view the technical annex is too detailed and also contains provisions that make no sense.

  Bjerregaard, Commission. – (DA) Mr President, I would like to begin by thanking Mr Florenz for the work which the Committee on the Environment has done on this important and complex proposal. The Committee on the Environment has proposed 45 amendments, and with a further 16 there is a total of 61. Some of the amendments clarify or improve the proposal, and I can already say that the Commission is able to accept 20 of them in full or in part. There are also some amendments which dilute the Commission's proposal and reduce the level of environmental protection. Here I am thinking in particular of topics such as producer responsibility, recovery targets, and the scope and implementation of the proposal. These elements are central to the Commission's proposal, and we cannot accept any watering‐down of them.

I would like to comment on the many amendments in groups. Let me begin with the scope of the proposal. Here I shall comment on two aspects in particular. The first aspect, which relates to Amendments Nos 9, 14 and the second part of 17, concerns veteran vehicles. We do not think that veteran vehicles which are in museums or owned by private individuals constitute waste. They are therefore not covered by the proposal, but we can of course make that clearer in the proposal itself. Then there is the proposal concerning the extent to which this should apply to two and three‐wheeled vehicles. We have also considered this, and we think that these vehicles should only be exempt from Articles 4 and 7 of the proposal. Amendment No 18 means that two and three‐wheeled vehicles would be exempt from all the articles apart from Article 6 of the proposal, and we cannot agree to that.

Then there are the heavy metals and PVC. In its proposal, the Commission has chosen to require that some of the heavy metals should be removed from the vehicles before they are reused, and I see that the Committee on the Environment is in favour of a clear phasing‐out of such heavy metals and a list of derogations which can be amended through the committee procedure. Unfortunately, I have reservations about this, so at the moment I cannot support Amendments Nos 20, 21, 45, 56 and 59, and Mrs Jensen was quite right that my answer concerning PVC would be that we are currently working on a horizontal initiative, so I cannot accept Amendments Nos 8, 19 and 21.

Then there is the question of the collection and take‐back of end‐of‐life vehicles. Here the Commission accepts Amendments Nos 24, 28 and 29 which clarify the text, but we cannot accept Amendments Nos 26 and 27. Amendments Nos 22 and 23 require careful consideration, so we are not accepting them today. I would like to emphasise that both free take‐back and the principle of producer responsibility, which have also featured strongly in the debate today, are key elements in connection with making production and consumption more sustainable in the longer term. This is also the reason why we cannot accept Amendment No 25 or Amendments Nos 46 and 54, but we can endorse Amendment No 43. As far as recycling, reuse and recovery of end‐of‐life vehicles is concerned, the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 34, because it would remove the short‐term recovery target. Then there is Amendment No 61, which makes the targets less clear, and Amendment No 53, which represents a serious obstacle to achieving the long‐term targets and is also unacceptable.

We cannot accept Amendments Nos 49 and 50, which would make it difficult to monitor whether the quantified targets have been reached, but we can accept Amendments Nos 57 and 58. There are also the amendments relating to implementation and, lastly, there is the question of environmental agreements, which we cannot accept at the present time. In this context, I must point out in passing that this concerned an entirely different debate, when we were discussing a different proposal from the Committee on the Environment regarding voluntary agreements.

I hope it will be possible to find a compromise in the course of further negotiations which strikes a balance between considerations relating to the environment, consumers and industry.

  President . – The debate is closed.

The vote will take place tomorrow at 11 a.m.