Towards the harmonization of automobile regulations
Commissioner Martin Bangemann will represent the European Commission at a high-level Transatlantic Business Dialogue (TABD) conference in Washington on 11 April 1996. The aim of the conference is to chart a path towards the global harmonization of automobile regulations in the fields of safety, environment and certification procedures. The crucial issue to be debated at the conference is how to devise "mechanisms of convergence" to actually bring regulations closer together and how to ensure that the results are implemented by governments. The conference is "industry led" in the sense that the debates will be oriented around three joint US-EU industry working papers on safety, environment, and certification and administrative processes. The working papers emphasize that the centre for international harmonization efforts should remain at the UN-ECE (Economic Commission for Europe) in Geneva. It is suggested that a distinction be made between short-term actions to move towards harmonization of EU-US regulations and longer-term ones. In the short term the industries argue that what is needed is a detailed side-by-side comparison between US and EU/UN-ECE regulations with a view to identifying which regulations are equivalent in terms of performance standards to be met, test procedures, etc. In the longer term EU and US efforts need to be coordinated to prepare new regulations jointly. This could include joint research programmes to develop the scientific and engineering bases underpinning new regulations.
Kraje
United States