28 June 2012

MAG - More Good News

If you've been on this mailing list for a while, you'll be aware that one of the issues MAG has with the proposed EU Type Approval regulation, is what are called the Delegated Acts.

Because there are so many new laws coming from Europe, EU Parliamentarians really haven't time to look at the details of them (meeting in session as they do, only about 6 days in each month).

As part of the Lisbon Treaty which came into force December 2009, more technical parts of regulations could be included in the Delegated Acts, or parts of the legislation which is delegated to the technocrats, who can continue to write them after the democratic process has ended as they have more time then.

Our concern is that there isn't really any procedure, and certainly no timetabling available, for these delegated acts to be scrutinised by Parliament later. I know many MEPs say that they have the power, but when we've pressed them on the specifics, I haven't yet found one who's been able to tell me how, in practise, that would happen.

So why is this email entitled 'more good news..'?

Well, we've just learnt, that after an EU Commission/Parliament/Council (that's the national governments) meeting at the start of this week, all the specifics of article 52 in the regulation, are now to be removed from delegated acts and will become what are known as 'implementing measures'. Bear with me, this gets good in a minute.

Article 52 is the bit of the regulation that wanted to ban any after market component, system, or technical unit which may alter performance or emissions on a bike. The list of what components were to be specifically effected was to be in a delegated act, meaning we couldn't see the list and couldn't try to alter what may be on it, until it was too late.

This week, that list has been removed from the hands of the technocrats and placed instead, in the hands of our DfT and accountable EU Parliamentarians. Yes, feel free to raise a pint this weekend.

All the campaigning, every letter you've written and the demos we've had in September and last week, when we estimated 10,000 rode across the country, is making a difference. The parliamentary vote is now timetabled for October 25th 2012 having been put back again.

We may not win everything, but bikes over 47bhp are now being exempted from the anti-modification element of this regulation and we will continue to fight for the best deal for riders, so thanks for being a part of it.

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Paddy Tyson
Campaigns Coordinator Motorcycle Action Group www.mag-uk.org 01926 844064

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