New rules for registration of vehicles !

[AnOther]

Should be very interesting to see how this develops !

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/single-market-goods/motor-vehicle-registration/index_en.htm

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP%2F12%2F349&for%20mat=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/242&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

[Pickles]

Part of me says "not before time"

Practically, however, there are some interesting challenges:

"Formalities for re-registering a car in another EU country would be reduced to a minimum. Many

controls would be abolished altogether, with authorities getting any

technical information they need about the car directly from their

colleagues in the country where it's already registered.

Registration authorities would cooperate more with each other, making it easier to track stolen cars. It would become impossible to register a stolen car in another EU country."

(my italics). Since French organisations seem to have quite enough issues cooperating with each other as it is, expecting them to cooperate across Europe would seem to be, as Sir Humphrey would say, a "courageous assumption", and given this and the lack of a common European vehicle registration database, the timescale (2014) seems heroic, to say the least!

[Pickles]

The more I think about it, the more I think that the only way to make this work is to have a common European vehicle registration database, with each country having its own registration system whilst having read-only access to the vehicle registration data of all other European vehicles. The unique identifier for each vehicle could be the VIN.

I suspect that they would then have to have a common European driver information database ...

By the way, AnO, Congratulations on your retirement, and may it be long, healthy and happy!

[AnOther]

Since in many cases fonctionnaires seem to have little grasp of  rules which have been in place for years or decades I'll not be holding my breath for them to be promptly or correctly actioning these changes.

Thanks for the well wishes, it's been a while coming !

[Sunday Driver]

This latest proposal is largely a rehash of an earlier EU proposal for the simplification of cross border movement of citizens and their cars which was published back in 1998, so what's the odds on a similar delay in the actual directive being issued?

There has already been progess which the proposal doesn't seem to acknowledge.  For example, any EU spec car built within the last fouteen years can already be registered in any EU member state with the minimum of formality. The car's technical information has already been routinely circulated to every EU member state for incorporation into their vehicle reference database.  To access this information, all the local registration authority has to do is type in a couple of identifier codes from the car's existing registration certificate - AnO's caveat acknowledged, of course.

Whether these proposals will make it easier for owners of older, non-EU compliant cars remains to be seen.  Given the proliferation of low emission zones across Europe where high polluting vehicles are now banned and the introduction of various scrapping incentives, I suspect the EU may well drag its heels in this area.  Anyone turning up in France with an old 'banger' and expecting the French to make it easy to get a carte grise may have to think again...

 

 

[powerdesal]

On an allied theme and related to French fonctionaires accessing their own data base.

Whilst (still) attempting to register my caravan, DREAL required me to send them:-

PV d'essai concernant le frein ALKO 2361 and PV d'essai concernant le dispositif de commande a inertie ALKO 200V

ALKO-Kober, at my request, sent me all 43 (!) pages of the two documents, with their comment that ''the French Authorities already have these''.

It was obviously far easier to request them again rather than interrogate their own info sources. :(

[Pickles]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]This latest proposal is largely a rehash of an earlier EU proposal for the simplification of cross border movement of citizens and their cars which was published back in 1998, so what's the odds on a similar delay in the actual directive being issued?

There has already been progess which the proposal doesn't seem to acknowledge.  For example, any EU spec car built within the last fouteen years can already be registered in any EU member state with the minimum of formality. The car's technical information has already been routinely circulated to every EU member state for incorporation into their vehicle reference database.  To access this information, all the local registration authority has to do is type in a couple of identifier codes from the car's existing registration certificate - AnO's caveat acknowledged, of course.

Whether these proposals will make it easier for owners of older, non-EU compliant cars remains to be seen.  Given the proliferation of low emission zones across Europe where high polluting vehicles are now banned and the introduction of various scrapping incentives, I suspect the EU may well drag its heels in this area.  Anyone turning up in France with an old 'banger' and expecting the French to make it easy to get a carte grise may have to think again...[/quote]

I am not holding my breath on this issue being resolved any time soon. It would be nice to clear up some of the more strange results of the current situation (eg we can drive the French-regd/French-insured car that is based at our holiday home anywhere except in the UK) - but this new proposal would then mean that this car would have to be re-registered/insured in the UK and return to the UK for MoTs.

According to one of the French investigative TV programmes, what some people have done is to set up a company in Lithuania, where company ownership details are kept secret, get the company to buy and register a car, which they then drive with impunity through any speed/red light camera zones because any resulting speeding tickets become essentially unenforceable. The practice does seem to be contrary to existing French and EU law (there was a test case in Austria a few years ago) but the gendarmes seem to have difficulty in actually enforcing the law even if they stop the car with a French-resident driver at the wheel. Incidentally, as far as I can see, the ONLY reason to do this is to avoid speeding tickets.

[Chancer]

My French pal was quite excited by this so together we skimmed through the whole French language version of the document, he found what he suspected would be contained within, a paragraph saying that any member country has "le droit d'imposition" on the registration of vehicles from other member states,  France will be able to impose an import tax on the matriculation of vehicles from other EU countries.

He may be very negative and a raleur but his predictions are usually bang on the money, I had been eagerly awaiting the 25th birthday of my Caterham to register her as une voiture de collection, he bet me that before she got to that age they would increase it, they did to 30 years [:(], it had previously been 20. He now bets me that it will rise to 50 years before she gets to 30.

[Sunday Driver]

I think 'le droit d'imposition' on the registration of vehicles from other member states relates to imported vehicles being subject to the same registration tax (carte grise fee) as native French vehicles.  Introducing a specific import tax on vehicles coming from another EU member state would be contrary to EU tax rules

When all this was originally proposed, the EU acknowledged that registration taxes seemed to be at the root of most of the problems faced in this area and suggested, as a valid option for future action, their gradual reduction and stabilisation at very low levels and preferably their total abolition, over a transitional period of around five to ten years. It suggested that this action should achieved by gradually switching over from revenue from registration tax to that from an annual circulation tax and fuel taxes.

 

 

[Chancer]

The problem is whilst we both read the paragraph together when we tried to find it again we couldnt, I have since carefully gone through both the french and english versions of the document and still cannot find it!

I have given up as there are more important things to do, I hope that you are correct SD and if I could find the paragraph and read it again with your interpretation in mind I am sure that I would agree.

[Pickles]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]I think 'le droit d'imposition' on the registration of vehicles from other member states relates to imported vehicles being subject to the same registration tax (carte grise fee) as native French vehicles.  Introducing a specific import tax on vehicles coming from another EU member state would be contrary to EU tax rules [/quote]

A registration tax upwards of 20% is applied to new and secondhand imported vehicles on first registration in Ireland, so in France you get off lightly!

[Sunday Driver]

If you move to Ireland to live, you can apply for exemption from vehicle registration tax on your imported vehicle.

Ireland exercising their 'droit de non-imposition'.......[;-)] 

 

 

[AnOther]

When the EU cannot agree with it's own court what hope is there for anybody.

"The Commission has argued more than once that Directive 83/183/EEC, which grants tax

exemptions to individuals changing residence from one Member

State to another, prohibits the levying of a motor vehicle registration tax by the Member State

to which the individual is moving. However, in Cases C-387/01 Weigel, C-365/02 Lindfors

and C-138/04 Commission v Denmark, the Court ruled that this tax exemption does not apply.

Nevertheless, some Member States do grant tax exemptions on a purely national basis, subject

to certain conditions."

Link

[cooperlola]

Ooo, er.  Because of AnO's overlong link, I now cannot read the right hand portion of any of these posts and the left/right arrows are missing so I can't even scroll to see it, nor could I see the report button to do this "behind the scenes" as I wished to. Another fault of the new forum which has been mentioned before to no avail[:(]

[AnOther]

You must be viewing on a very small screen Coops.

But just for you I've edited it [kiss]

[Pickles]

[quote user="Chancer"]

My French pal was quite excited by this so together we skimmed through the whole French language version of the document, he found what he suspected would be contained within, a paragraph saying that any member country has "le droit d'imposition" on the registration of vehicles from other member states,  France will be able to impose an import tax on the matriculation of vehicles from other EU countries.

He may be very negative and a raleur but his predictions are usually bang on the money, I had been eagerly awaiting the 25th birthday of my Caterham to register her as une voiture de collection, he bet me that before she got to that age they would increase it, they did to 30 years [:(], it had previously been 20. He now bets me that it will rise to 50 years before she gets to 30.

[/quote]

It's contained in para 3.3 of the French (and English) document

http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/policies/single-market-goods/files/car_registration/fewer_registration_formalities_2012/regulation_com_2012_164_fr.pdf

[Pickles]

[quote user="cooperlola"]Ooo, er.  Because of AnO's overlong link, I now cannot read the right hand portion of any of these posts and the left/right arrows are missing so I can't even scroll to see it, nor could I see the report button to do this "behind the scenes" as I wished to. Another fault of the new forum which has been mentioned before to no avail[:(][/quote]

As Coops says below, this is not a screen size problem: it is to do with the software not correctly handling the contents of the frame in which it displays the forum. Incidentally, this posting was initially made without clicking on the "post" button.

[cooperlola]

[quote user="AnOther"]You must be viewing on a very small screen Coops.

But just for you I've edited it [kiss]

[/quote]I guess 26" is small by your standards, Erns!  Although of course only half of it is actual text these days. But thanks for that, I can read it properly now.

No,it's a forum problem and it's happened before.  As there are no left and right arrows in view on the new style forum I cannot shift left and right to see any text which is hidden when links don't wrap or pics are too big, as I could in the old days.

[AnOther]

You flatter me Coops but I have to confess that I'm only good for 17.1" these days !

I've never seen the problem you describe, what browser is that with ?

In Firefox I just tried expanding the screen with Ctrl + the mouse wheel and eventually the horizontal scroll bar appeared.

[nomoss]

[quote user="Pickles"] A registration tax upwards of 20% is applied to new and secondhand imported vehicles on first registration in Ireland, so in France you get off lightly!
[/quote]

That's not too bad. My son recently paid 180% registration tax in Denmark on his motor cycle. Apparently this can be partially refunded if he re-exports it, but strangely enough he reckons he could still sell it at a profit!