Bilateral meeting with the Commission on road requirements for Non-Road Mobile Machinery (NRMM)

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A bilateral meeting was organised between the Industrial Task Force on Non Road Mobile Machinery (ITF NRMM), composed of CECE, CEMA, EGMF, EUnited, EUROPGEN and FEM, and representatives of the Commission (DG GROW) to clarify some points for the preparation of the draft Regulation to set the road requirements for NRMM.

The Commission wanted in particular to:

• have more information on machines driving above 40 km/h: examples and volumes compared to the whole production of NRMM. Some Member States expressed some concerns on having no limitation on the design speed;
• understand why an alignment with agricultural tractors was not possible for the level of noise in motion: this subject impacts in particular agricultural self-propelled machinery, when they are fitted with a hydrostatic main drive compared to tractors where it is a mechanical one. A percentage of machines for which this noise level is not achievable was requested;
• clarify the situation between tracked and wheeled options by the introduction of different categories: the industry reminded the interchangeability between both options, and emphasised the preference to cover them under two different variants in the same type‑approval;
• inform on the request from different Member States to add new subjects – for example, consideration of protective structure against overturning (ROPS), batteries, safety of electrical systems – which they consider are also impacted by the road circulation; the industry reminded the Commission that these points are already covered by the Machinery Directive. .

One week was left for industry to provide figures and feedback, so to keep in the timeline originally planned, and enable the Commission proposal to be released in the first quarter of 2022.