Air pollution: emissions from small park ignition engines, non-road mobile machinery

At the Plenary of the European Parliament the Commission accepted all the amendments of the Parliament except amendment 29 about the exemptions for certain engines. On 26 October 2001 the Commission decided on an amended proposal which included all those amendments accepted at the plenary. The Council decision to include the amendment 30 of the European Parliament instead of amendment 29 is supported by the Commission as a good compromise solution once the system of averaging and banking was rejected. It will give the possibility to examine more in detail what exemptions are really needed and what environmental consequences such exemptions will have. The exclusion of the text on economic incentives and labelling is in line with the original Commission proposal. The text proposed by the European Parliament would have been acceptable for the Commission but for this kind of equipment it is not likely that any economic incentives will be used anyhow. This was the reason why the Commission did not address that issue in its original proposal. In general, the Commission welcomes the common position, as a good compromise. While Council and Parliament have rejected the system of averaging and banking proposed by the Commission, it has been replaced by a comitology procedure to exempt certain equipment with compliance problems without significantly affecting the overall environmental result. Hence, the Commission can accept and support the common position adopted and invites the two institutions to reach an agreement on this amending Directive as soon as possible. The Commission has also declared its intention to carry out a study and come forward with the appropriate proposals, in accordance with Article 14a, in particular the study will include but not be limited to the applications in the Annex to this declaration. In an Annex to the statement, a list of the types of equipment is specified as follows: professional use chainsaws; tree chainsaws; professional use bushcutters; hedgetrimmers; professional use power cutters; augers; portable drills.�