In a statement issued yesterday, Tajani said he invited Member States to assist the Commission in finding concrete and urgent solutions to re-establish conformity in the internal market.

Directive 2006/40/EC on mobile air conditioning (MAC Directive) became fully applicable on 1 January 2013. Among other things, this directive requires the use of refrigerants with a limited global warming potential. Although industry has lined up behing HFO 1234yf to fulfill the obligations of this directive; Daimler has balked at its use (earlier post) based on its internal safety testing and has continued to use the old refrigerant with a much higher air polluting potential.

As a consequence, Tajani noted, Daimler has vehicles in the European market that, according to the preliminary Commission analysis, are not in conformity with their type-approval, and not respecting the obligations of the MAC Directive. According to Framework Directive 2007/46/EC on type approval (Framework Directive), non-conform vehicles cannot be sold or registered in the European Union.

There are also vehicles produced from May 2013 and approved under an extension of a previous type approval granted by the German authority, whose legal status needs to be investigated further, Tajani said.

France is now reportedly blocking registrations of some new Mercedes-Benz cars over the coolant issue.

The Commission is committed to ensuring the highest level of safety of vehicles placed on the European market. However, until the present date there has been no confirmation that the safety issues that have been raised are of general nature, or rather linked to specific systems/vehicles. The relevant national authorities, in Germany, are currently evaluating this.

Given this situation, on 10 June the Commission sent a letter to the German authorities in the framework of the EU pilot infringement procedure in order to clarify this situation. The Commission, in its role as Guardian of the Treaty, will duly assess the elements and explanations given by the German authorities.

Article 29 of the Framework Directive provides for the possibility for Member States to adopt temporary safeguard measures, if some conditions are met and a specific procedure is followed. If this procedure is triggered, the Commission may consider the French initiative within this framework.

—Antonio Tajani

(A hat-tip to the ICCT (@TheICCT)!)