You may remember that just a month ago we posted about the outcome of the TRAN committee vote in the EU Parliament excluding motorcycles from the roadworthiness testing proposals. Previously, the European Council and the IMCO committee had excluded motorcycles, and the TRAN vote was one more battle won.
We said at the time that the defeat of the proposal would not be taken lightly, and how right that proved to be.
Despite the Council, IMCO and TRAN votes excluding motorcycles from the scope, further amendments have been tabled for the plenary vote on Tuesday 5th July which aim to scupper the democratic process. These amendments we pushed through at the eleventh hour by MEP’s Phil Bennion (ALDE), Saïd El Khadraoui & Silvia-Adriana Ţicău (S&D), and Isabelle Durant (Greens).
MAG Ireland has notified the Irish MEP’s of this last minute changes, and requested their support to overturn them ahead of the final Plenary vote next Tuesday. We continue to lobby for the exclusion of motorcycles from testing on the basis that the evidence for their inclusion was supplied by a testing company who stand to make millions from extended roadworthiness testing. We’ll be reporting the outcome early next week.
 Elsewhere, Northern Ireland’s Right to Ride have a very detailed post on this issue in which they take an in depth look at the whole process.Right to Ride describes the intervention by these MEP’s as follows:
That rather neatly sums up the feeling among riders representative organisations across Europe right now. See “Down to the Wire” on the Right to Ride web site at: http://www.righttoride.eu/?p=11424 |
We in MAG Ireland will continue to monitor the situation as it unfolds. We continue to work with and through FEMA, the Federation of European Motorcyclists’ Associations on this and other key issues.
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