21 February 2020, 13:18
On 12th February, on his first official engagement in Brussels, CECE President Niklas Nillroth had a high-level bilateral meeting at the European Commission (EC). The goal of the meeting was to highlight the strategic importance of the forthcoming legal proposal for EU harmonisation of road circulation requirements on mobile machinery.
In his meeting with Mr Cozigou, Director General at DG GROW in charge of all industrial and Single Market’s related policies at the EC, Niklas Nillroth insisted on the unacceptable hole in the EU Single Market with national homologation systems that diverge and create costs and administrative burdens on manufacturers.
CECE asked for this meeting in order to request reassurances on the process of political validation for this key proposal. Indeed, since the 2020 EC Work Programme did not include road circulation, concerns were being raised about raising awareness of the new EC’s political leadership on industry’s request to legislate in this area.
About costs, CECE reminded the main findings of a recent study commissioned by the EC to investigate the economic benefits from potential EU harmonisation. The sector’s compliance costs for road homologation - now standing at € 6 billion over a 10-year period - could be reduced by roughly 20% in case of EU harmonisation – a net saving estimated between 1 and 1.3 billion.
Mr Cozigou reassured the CECE President that preparations keep moving forward within the competent unit at DG GROW and that the political validation process is continuing in relation to the newly established Cabinet of Commissioner Breton.
He insisted on three important factors that made these reassurances very concrete. He thinks that there is a clear need to solve an issue within the Single Market, there is strong push by industry in this sense and there is general approval by Member States on the added-value of EU legislative action. Also taking part to the meeting, Ms Barbara Bonvissuto – Head of unit in charge of the proposal – echoed all points made by Mr Cozigou reminding the good collaboration with the ITF and the next steps such as a stakeholder workshop in early-May.
CECE closed this point by describing the current work of the Industrial Task Force on road circulation, which also met on 18th February under the coordination of CEMA.
Source: CECE - Committee for European Construction Equipment