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Technical and Competition Committees update – September 2021

28/09/2021

The Technical and Competition Committees continue to make progress on a number of legal cases. The latest meeting of members took place on Wednesday 15 September.

On the advocacy side, the Committees have continued to engage with the European institutions regarding the evaluation of the Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation (MVBER) and the adoption of the draft Delegated Regulation amending Annex X of Regulation 2018/858 (on approval and market surveillance of motor vehicles and their trailers).

The evaluation report on the MVBER was published by the European Commission on the 28^th of May. The next step is for the Commission to decide whether to let the current MVBER regime lapse by 31 May 2023, renew it or revise it. The Committees are drafting a new letter to the Commission urging them to maintain the MVBER but also to make some improvements in particular with regard to anti-competitive behaviours and access to technical information (as outlined in the position paper). Through concrete examples, this letter aims to make clear to the Commission that anti-competitive behaviour is a real problem which needs to be addressed in a revised MVBER. The Committees’ chairs also continue to meet MEPs for fruitful exchanges on the challenges and opportunities faced by the European lubricant industry in particular with regard to the MVBER.