Tomorrow, (23rd Nov) sees the start of a new Impact Assessment into the EU Type Approval Regulation.
This has been granted due to the incredible amount of work which has been done by MAG and FEMA and everyone who has written a letter or who rode on the 25th September.
We knew that the 22nd November IMCO vote (Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee) on the Regulation would be delayed again, as MAG, FEMA and the UK Gov among others, battled to secure another, more robust Impact Assessment (IA) of the Regulation that could see an end to the modification of power-trains and compulsory ABS for all.
The vote had already been postponed twice, before it was rescheduled for the 5th December. Now we have good cause to believe it will be moved yet again, as there is no realistic way the IA can be completed, a report prepared, and the IMCO committee members given time to read it, before the 5th December.
Remember, every delay is a minor victory, as it ensures more time and effort is being expended examining this proposed legislation. We planned to ensure that every UK MEP would read this proposed Regulation and make sure it wasn’t just rubber-stamped, as much legislation is and we’ve certainly managed that; there aren’t many pieces of EU legislation that are delayed this long.
We suspect IMCO won’t have sufficient time to vote before Christmas, meaning the Plenary Session won’t have an opportunity to vote until the Spring.
The full EU Parliament only meet to vote about 5 or 6 days in every month and at this rate it is unrealistic to assume they could be presented with ‘our’ Regulation until the Spring, at a Strasbourg meeting.
That’ll be our time to write more letters and perhaps get out on the streets again, because it’ll be all our UK MEPs who are voting, whether they sit on IMCO or not. We hope every rider and the bike press will ensure they hear our opinions before that crucial vote.
The great news is that we hear from IMCO that the more outrageous amendments to the proposals, like giving the police the powers to stop and check bikes, have now been thrown out. There is even a chance that because there is so much debate around article 18, the dreaded ‘anti-tampering’ of power-trains, that the whole article may be thrown out. This would be a massive victory, but is still something for which we have to wait and see.