Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-10-02-Speech-1-129"
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"en.20001002.9.1-129"2
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".
Mr President, I would firstly like to thank Mr Hatzidakis for the excellent work he has carried out on this proposal of great technical complexity. The Commission is pleased that the report points out the need to seek a balance between the commercial aspects and those linked to competition and, at the same time, guarantees technical progress on the one hand and safety on the other. We share these objectives, of course.
The aim of the text is clear and has already been mentioned here: to establish a uniform regulation for the dimension of rigid buses in transport services. The current legislation is very varied, very disparate, and there seems to be a clear need for harmonisation.
In order to fully understand what I am going to say with regard to the Commission’s reaction to the various amendments, it should be made clear that the proposal, in our view, aims to authorise a maximum length of 15 metres throughout the European Union, provided that two requirements are complied with: firstly, that buses of between 12 and 15 metres have three axles – an important issue which I will discuss later and which has led to some debate – and, secondly, that buses are manoeuvrable, that is to say, that their manoeuvrability is in accordance with Community legislation.
Let us start with the first requirement: the three axles. The problem of the three axles, in the Commission’s view, is fundamental if we wish to guarantee that, despite the size of these buses, the weight is distributed evenly and does not create problems for the road infrastructures. This is the fundamental point. We can understand that there may be a debate on whether all buses are the same or not, but we believe that excess detail in relation to specific solutions would, at the end of the day, be the worst formula. We believe that the three axles for buses of over 12 metres represent the simplest formula, which will best resolve the problems. That is the reason why Amendments Nos 2 and 4, which seek to reduce that requirement by establishing that the third axle is only obligatory in the case of buses of more than thirteen and a half or even 15 metres, are not acceptable to the Commission. We believe that that would have negative effects – as we have said previously – on the infrastructures.
The second requirement of our proposal is that the buses pass a specific manoeuvrability test. What manoeuvrability test? Well, the same conditions that are currently laid down in Directive 97/27, which also link this test to manufacturing standards. We believe that this is a key point and it is also the reason why the Commission cannot accept Amendment No 3, since it seeks to establish different standards of manoeuvrability, which are less rigorous that those that currently exist. They would clearly be easier to comply with, but they would introduce risks from the point of view of the safety of this type of vehicle.
Amendments Nos 5 and 7 are not acceptable to the Commission either. In both cases, they seek to have the directive enter into force at a later date. This clearly presents practical problems in the sense that, if we want to accelerate the construction of the internal market, anything which speeds up the process is positive, while delays, on the other hand, would create serious difficulties. Accepting Amendment No 6 would also cause certain problems, since we do not consider that it has sufficient technical justification. Nevertheless, it does seem reasonable that buses of 15 metres, which are already authorised and which do not conform to the above-mentioned requirements, that is to say, the three axles and manoeuvrability, nevertheless should benefit from a transitional period and that that transitional period should be longer than the one initially laid down. The original proposal was a period lasting until 2009. The Commission considers that that exemption is perhaps excessively restrictive and we could accept the idea that the directive would allow them to stay in use until 2015."@en1
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