The European Transport Safety Council welcomes this opportunity to present the European Commission with its views on the regulatory regime in the Automotive Sector for the coming ten years. When the Cars21 high level group was established by the Commission ETSC welcomed the move but expressed some concern over whether all the necessary expertise and information would be available to such a restricted group1. The subsequent commitment made by Vice President Verheugen at the Cars21 hearing that other contributions from stakeholders not present within the Cars21 group would be considered alongside the Cars21 report gave ETSC much more confidence that the worthy aims of achieving a safer, cleaner and leaner regulatory environment could be attained. ETSC, along with other NGOs, has in the past been rather critical of the Commission in this issue area for a lack of transparency and restricted consultation. The commitment by Vice President Verheugen and this public consultation exercise are therefore greatly welcomed by ETSC. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting