Changes from report parliamentary committee draft to plenary report

1. Background

On 23 March 2023, the Commission submitted to the European Parliament and to the Council a proposal for a Regulation on the approval and market surveillance of non-road mobile machinery circulating on public roads and amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020. Mobile machinery might need, whether occasionally or often, to circulate on public roads, mostly to move from one working place to another. The Commission aims at non-road mobile machinery used, among other things, for construction, agricultural, garden, forestry, material handling and municipal applications (such as harvesters, sprayers, loaders, excavators, mobile cranes, ride-on mowers, forklifts, telehandlers, street sweepers, lifting platforms or snow cleaners). This proposal aims to fill a gap in the single market, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, for these non-road mobile machinery by introducing an EU-wide type-approval for non-road mobile machinery.

2. Draft Report

The Rapporteur fully supports the overall objectives of the proposed Regulation, namely to harmonise at EU level the technical requirements for the approval of non-road mobile machinery, ensuring a high level of road safety and eliminating barriers to the free circulation of such machinery on the EU Single Market by reducing fragmentation. The rapporteur is convinced that the proposed Regulation has the full potential to achieve all these objectives. In line with the Commission's proposals, the rapporteur wants to make type-approval simpler and more harmonised across the European Union, without placing unnecessary additional obligations and administration on manufacturers. The rapporteur is convinced that through this Regulation we can achieve a high level of safety across the European Union when these machines circulate on the roads.

With these objectives in mind and in order to further improve the text, the rapporteur proposes six key changes to the text:

I. Clear scope (Art. 2): the rapporteur believes that non-road mobile machinery intended for field-testing activities carried out by the manufacturer, which are inherent to the machine development process, should be kept out of scope of the Regulation. Furthermore, the rapporteur suggests some clear language on the rules for small series and individual approvals, for which manufacturers should, even after the transition period, still have the possibility to choose between national or EU type-approval.

II. Wider definition of a ‘type’ and ‘variant’ (Art. 3): the rapporteur proposes to make the definition of a non-road mobile machinery type and a variant less strict, in order to allow for more flexibility to accommodate for small volumes and for the manufacturer to have more very similar machines EU type-approved under the same type or variant.

III. Avoid uneccessary overlap with the Machinery Product Regulation (Art. 3 and Art. 15): the rapporteur is convinced that this non-road mobile machinery Regulation should not overlap with the upcoming Machinery Product Regulation. Both in terms of serious risks, which should be clearly linked to circulation on public roads, and in terms of technical requirements, of which some are already sufficiently covered by the Machinery Product Regulation.

IV. Longer harmonised lead time in relation to validity of existing types (Art. 16): the rapporteur supports the introduction of a harmonised lead time in relation to the validity of existing types when new requirements are introduced on EU-level. However, for seasonal machines, such as specific agricultural machinery, the period of 18 months in the proposal for Regulation should be extended to 24 months. This is already the end of series time period granted for tractors and this is justified by the fact that new requirements need a minimum of two seasons to be tested and validated.

V. Compulsory acceptance of approval of adequate production arrangements (Art. 22): while the Commission for the conformity of production arrangements only obliges approval authorities to cooperate with approval authorities of other Member States, the rapporteur is convinced that the approval done by one Member State should easily be accepted by another Member States under the conditions specified by the Commission in a delegated act.

VI. Involvement of industry stakeholders (Art. 46 and Art. 49): the rapporteur finds a stronger involvement of the industry is needed. Therefore, both in the committee procedure and in the newly established forum, the rapporteur strengthened the language on involvement of the industry stakeholders from all relevant sectors.

3. Conclusions

As the discussions of EU type-approval for non-road mobile machinery has long been the subject of debate between stakeholders and the European Commission, the rapporteur is pleased that this excellent proposal is finally on the table. The rapporteur trusts the Member States to take this up and contribute further to the deepening of the internal market for these machines.