BRUSSELS, Belgium -- Car makers will have to pay the costs of recycling both existing cars and new cars from the 2001 model year under the European Union end-of-life vehicles law.
A conciliation committee of diplomats from the 15 EU member countries and members of the European Parliament agreed to the measures Tuesday night.
The breakthrough is the agreement that car makers will have the same responsibility for "existing" cars put on the market before 2001.
The deal is a final rebuff for the parliament's attempts to weaken producer responsibility for recycling cars already on the road.
It is a victory for the European Commission, which had staunchly supported governments' efforts to make manufacturers pay for the recycling of all cars.
The parliament's attempts to substantially weaken bans on heavy metals in car manufacture have also failed.
The meeting ended with the common position agreed by governments last year largely intact.
Manufacturers will pay "all or a significant part" of the costs of a free take back and recycling scheme for "new" cars put on the market from 2001, rather than enjoying the 18-month delay that parliament had wanted to introduce.
It is this provision which had become the central point of dispute in talks over the directive, with Europe's car industry protesting that any retroactive responsibility would be illegal and financially crippling.
The parliament appeared to support the car makers when it narrowly passed a confusing amendment endorsing the free take back and recycling scheme for existing cars but leaving it unclear who would fund it.
Rapporteur Member of the European Parliament (MEP) Karl-Heinz Florenz, an opponent of retroactive responsibility, jubilantly claimed that the 15 EU member states would have to decide how much of the burden fell on producers. He maintained this stance in preliminary talks with diplomats before Tuesday's full conciliation meeting.
But his interpretation was supported only half-heartedly by other MEPs and openly opposed by many. Sources at the meeting said Florenz found himself "in a minority" -- facing government diplomats extremely reluctant to reopen an agreement reached among themselves last year only after much trauma.
In the end, the parties agreed that retrospective responsibility would be delayed just one year to 2007.
The second major issue resolved is the timing of a ban on lead, cadmium, mercury, and hexavalent chromium in car manufacture. The ban will take effect from 2003 instead of 18 months after the law enters into force, as had been favored by EU governments. The parliament had wanted to delay the ban until 2005.
In a second reverse for the parliament, the ban will apply to individual cars rather than models, effectively bringing forward the phase out by up to seven years.
Parliamentary demands to exempt lead wheel balancing weights and cadmium batteries from the ban also fell, in line with a recent study showing that alternatives exist.
The Commission said today the agreement is "highly satisfying" and "very promising" for planned legislation on waste electrical and electronic equipment. Commissioner Margot Wallström said the Commission had "achieved its key objectives" of improving waste management and removing a number of hazardous materials from the environment.
Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2000.
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