After the UK leaves the EU it will not be possible anymore to place on the market vehicles and components with an EU type-approval issued by an UK authority.

A new EU regulation was published that allows requesting EU type-approvals for vehicles such as tractors and components such as engines that have an UK-issued type-approval. After the UK leaves the EU it will not be not possible anymore to place on the market vehicles and components with an EU type-approval issued by an UK authority. This was already explained in a notice published by the European Commission early 2018 that can be found here (https://ec.europa.eu/info/files/type-approval-vehicles-and-engines_en).

Therefore, all vehicles and components with an UK type-approval or vehicles where components with an UK type-approval are installed need to obtain a type-approval from an EU Member State (an EU27 type-approval) to be placed on the EU market after the UK exits the EU. In the existing legislation this was not allowed, as only one EU type-approval per vehicle could be requested. However, the newly published Regulation 2019/26 changes this. Regulation 2019/26 makes it possible to obtain EU27 type-approvals for vehicles and components that currently have a type-approval issued by an UK authority.

You can find the regulation HERE.

CEMA is currently working on a guidance document that will bring clarity on this issue to manufacturers and dealers of agricultural machinery.

What needs to be done by manufacturers?

The exact actions that need to be taken depend on the final Brexit arrangement. In case of a hard Brexit on 29 March 2019, all vehicles and components with an UK-issued type-approval or vehicles with UK type-approved components need to request EU27 type-approvals to be able to place the vehicles and components on the EU market. For vehicles and components that are already placed on the market and/or entered into service, it should not be necessary to make changes to the existing type-approval. The exception is components with UK type-approval that are already placed on the market and that are fitted in tractors that enter into service after a hard Brexit date. For those components and vehicles, it is necessary to make changes to the type-approvals. This will have an impact on the stocks of components.

Exemption for transition engines with invalid type-approvals

An exemption is included in the legislation for components whose type-approvals are not valid anymore on 29 March 2019 (e.g. Stage IV transition engines below 56kW and above 130kW). Those can still be placed on the EU market with a UK-issued EU type-approval after a hard Brexit.

If there is a transitional agreement obtaining the EU27 type-approvals for the vehicles and components would only be necessary after the end of the transitional period, which is most likely by 31 December 2020 at the earliest. In case there is no Brexit, nothing changes in comparison to the current situation.

With respect to the situation of placing vehicles and machines on the UK market, the UK authorities published documents that should provide more information on the future situation. You can find the information on this website from the UK government: CLICK HERE (latest update 13 September 2018).

*** MOST UPDATED INFORMATION ***

The UK Vehicle Certification Agency has released application instructions for the Provisional ‘UK Type Approval’ in case of a no-deal Brexit.

https://www.vehicle-certification-agency.gov.uk/vehicletype/vehicle-type-approval-transition-information.asp

 

To be continued… but be prepared!

Unfortunately, at the moment of writing this article it is not sure yet if there will be a hard-Brexit, a transition period, no-Brexit or a Brexit deal. The situation remains volatile. Therefore, it is recommended to check the latest status of the discussion and legislation before making any decisions. The CEMA Secretariat can however only stress the importance for all business to review the Brexit preparedness documentation put together by the European Commission as well as the respective information sites put together by most national governments in the EU27 as well as the UK.

We recommend to review the Preparedness notices (click HERE), the applicable Legislative initiatives and other legal acts (click HERE- with our type approval listed under…Car type-approval) as well as other preparedness activities such as seminar material (click HERE) and factsheets (click HERE).