Polluting emissions by lorries, buses and coaches on Maltese roads will hopefully soon be a thing of the past. The recent informal agreement reached by the European Parliament and the Council of Ministers on an ambitious piece of legislation which has the objective of monitoring and reporting CO2 emissions and fuel consumption data from new heavy-duty vehicles (HDVs) is surely a step in the right direction.

This regulation is the first-ever EU legislation focusing on the CO2 emissions from such vehicles. Cars and vans are already currently regulated. Emissions of heavy-duty vehicles registered in the EU will now for the first time be measured and monitored in a standardised way.

Cars and vans are already currently regulated

In terms of this new regulation, as of January 1, 2019, lorry manufacturers will be obliged to calculate the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of new vehicles which they produce for the EU market. These will be calculated using the new Vehicle Energy Consumption Calculation Tool (VECTO), a simulation software developed by the European Commission in close cooperation with stakeholders and designed specifically to measure the CO2 emissions and fuel consumption of HDVs for specific loads, fuels and mission profiles based on input data from relevant vehicle components.

This information must be formally declared by manufacturers for the registration of lorries under the EU type-approval legislative framework.

Member states themselves will also be obliged to monitor and report registration data concerning all new HDVs registered in a calendar year, including trailers.

All the data will be made publicly available by the European Environment Agency on behalf of the Commission, starting in 2020 to cover data monitored in 2019.

The agreement reached must now be formally approved by the European Parliament and Council of Ministers in order for the regulation to come into force. This new law is in fact being seen as the precursor to further legislation on CO2 emission standards for HDVs to be proposed by the Commission shortly.

Statistics prove that lorries, buses and coaches produce around a quarter of CO2 emissions from road transport in the EU and around five per cent of the EU’s total greenhouse gas emissions. Initiatives such as this one will not only seek to secure a healthier environment and better quality of life for Europe’s citizens, but also serve to reward those manufacturers who actively seek to make Europe a cleaner place by permitting transport operators to make efficient choices on the basis of data available.

Mariosa Vella Cardona M’Jur, LL.D., is a freelance legal consultant specialising in European law, competition law, consumer law and intellectual property law.

mariosa@vellacardona.com