Air pollution: measures to be taken against emission of gaseous pollutants from diesel engines (amend. Directive 88/77/EEC)

In its common position, the Council made three types of amendments to the Commission's proposal: - as regards the limit values, the Council adopted a position combining the key elements of the Commission's proposal and the EP's opinion: . the intermediate limit of 0.25 g/kWh (initially proposed by the Commission), . the proposal to reduce by two years the period during which this derogation should apply (as requested by the EP). The Council felt that, although vehicles with small engines could not currently respect the limit of 0.15 g/kWh established in Directive 91/542/EEC, current technology meant that they were nevertheless able to respect a stricter limit than that which applied until 30 September 1995 (0.61 g/kWh for new engines covered by the proposal) and that, in order to improve the environment, it was important to adopt the Commission's proposal to set a value of 0.25 g/kWh. Nonetheless, to give a signal to the industry, the Council followed Parliament's lead and reduced the period when the derogation would apply by two years. As a result, from 1 October 1997, the new engines would have to respect the limit of 0.15 g/kWh established in Directive 91/542/EEC. To improve coherence and legal presentation, the Council also moved point 2 of the Annex as proposed by the Commission; - the Council deleted the provisions relating to tax incentives since they would be virtually ineffective given the brief period during which they would be applied; - finally, the Council made corrections to the tables concerning the procedure verifying the conformity of production requirements (Annex I, Appendix 1, Table I.1.5 and Appendix 2, Table I.2.5). �