Registration documents for vehicles. 'Roadworthiness package'

PURPOSE: to achieve a harmonised Union vehicle registration framework

PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: the registration of a vehicle provides the administrative authorisation for its entry into service in road traffic. The roadworthiness package (RWP), last updated in 2014, complements the safety and environmental requirements that vehicles must meet to be able to circulate on EU roads, in line with the respective EU type-approval regulations for motor vehicles. It focuses on ensuring that minimum standards are maintained by owners throughout the vehicle’s lifetime. However, unsafe vehicles still circulate on EU roads. This is despite the RWP revision in 2014, other related EU legislation and improvements in vehicle technology, including active safety and intelligent driver assistance systems in new vehicles.  The Directives adopted under the 2014 RWP are not effective in helping enforce rules on EU cross-border traffic and the trade in vehicles.

CONTENT: the Commission is therefore proposing a comprehensive overhaul of the EU's road safety and vehicle registration rules. The proposal aims to further improve road safety in the EU, contribute to sustainable mobility and to facilitate the free movement of persons and goods in the EU by unlocking the full potential of the Roadworthiness Package (RWP).

The new rules will:

- take into account the growing presence of electric vehicles and adapt to emerging technologies;

- introduce enhanced inspections, including periodic technical inspections for electric vehicles and advanced driver-assistance systems, annual inspections for older cars and vans, and advanced emission testing methods to detect high-emitting vehicles to reduce fine particles pollution;

- introduce digital vehicle registration and periodic testing certificates, simplify cross-border data sharing, and protect citizens against fraudulent activities such as odometer tampering;

- facilitate periodic technical inspections for those temporarily residing in another EU country.

In addition, the proposal also:

- introduces general rules applicable to vehicle registration certificates, in particular by distinguishing between physical and mobile vehicle registration certificates;

- makes provision for issuing physical registration certificates in smart card format as well as for a QR code on physical registration certificates, to make it easier and quicker to check the information contained therein;

- lays down detailed requirements for the introduction of mobile vehicle registration certificates, including provisions related to the European Digital Identity Wallet;

- specifies the data to be recorded (and kept up to date) in national vehicle registers. Additional data to be recorded in those vehicle registers may include the outcome of mandatory periodic roadworthiness tests, information on changes to the ownership of vehicles and information on reasons for the cancellation of a vehicle registration;

- regulates electronically recording a vehicle’s suspension from road use in national registers after it fails a roadworthiness test;

- outlines the procedure for re-registering vehicles in another Member State, both for cases where physical and mobile vehicle registration certificates were issued;

- requires Member States to assist one another in implementing this Directive, in particular by providing access to relevant vehicle registration data, including data on roadworthiness and the suspension of vehicles. To facilitate this exchange of data, Member States will be required to interconnect their registers with the Commission’s MOVE-HUB system so that this information can be exchanged in real time.

Budgetary implications

The implications for the EU budget are mainly related to extending the features of the IT data exchange system (the MOVE-HUB) linked to the revision of the RWP. This includes one-off adaptation costs and recurrent updates and maintenance costs. These are required to add new data elements to the vehicle registers and providing electronic access to certain data (including on PTI reports stored in national databases). The associated costs are estimated at EUR 0.2 million in one-off costs and EUR 0.05 million per year in recurrent costs.