The European thought is based on the idea on Europe without borders. This idea is not only dedicated on the borders of the national states, but also on all areas of the daily life. Definitely it includes the exchange of goods and services. Today vehicle inspection is one of the services where it is not possible for the Europeans to select this service abroad the own country. The vehicle inspection belongs to the sovereign sectors of the member states. All have their own history, conditions and influencing factors and also different documentation and partly also different content of the regular vehicle inspection. It has to be discussion what could be achieved by mutual recognition or full harmonisation in this field. The prerequisite for an open vehicle inspection market is the mutual recognition of different vehicle inspection schemes. Two basic scenarios can be considered: 1. A foreign vehicle is tested with the test procedures of the home country a. carried out by an operator of the foreign country b. carried out by an operator of the home country 2. A foreign vehicle is tested according the local test procedures by local staff. There are some few agreements in this field, but there is no concept to cover all vehicles operating across the borders. The solutions of today are more specialised to cover the interest and needs of special groups of users. Most of the private citizens which live abroad their own country where the vehicle is still licensed. There is a strong interest by big fleet owners, which operate all over Europe and also outside the MS with their fleet for the option to have the test done wherever the vehicle is running. Some of their vehicles are for a longer term run in other areas than they are licensed, so they have to organize the return just for proceeding the test. So a solution of full harmonisation and may be a “one fits all” test procedure can only be a long term objective, following mutual recognition on one by one solutions. But to establish a system which is capable to cover the interests of these transport companies with very large fleets seems to be more possible by mutual recognition between different MS. (Author/publisher) For the final report and other Workpackages of the AUTOFORE project see http://cita.weborigin.be/AUTOFORE%5FStudy/map.htm
Abstract