28 May Internal Market Council

Date: 30/05/1996

EUROPEAN cars will have to pass strict new car crash tests before they are deemed roadworthy, following a decision by internal market ministers this week. That decision will make deformable barrier tests - which represent real life crashes more closely than the head-on barrier tests currently in use in the EU - obligatory. The European Commission hopes that the new tests will dramatically improve road safety. Some 50,000 people die and 1.5 million people are injured in traffic accidents in the Union each year. A separate proposal on side-impact tests has already been adopted by the Council and the European Parliament.

NEW food designed exclusively for diabetics will reach supermarket and pharmacy shelves without lengthy delays in future. Worried that the current time-consuming procedures for authorising innovative food were putting European food producers at a competitive disadvantage, ministers decided to introduce a two-year temporary authorisation period. This would allow food companies to sell their products while they wait for final approval. However, the Council failed to reach agreement on the harmonisation of national laws governing dietary food.

THE Commission presented its plans to ministers to introduce Europe-wide levies on the sale of contemporary works of art. The proposal would, if adopted, entitle artists, sculptors and photographers, or their heirs, to a 2&percent; to 4&percent; share of any profits made from the resale of their works during their lifetime and for up to 70 years after their death. Resale rights exist in most EU countries, but not in the UK, Ireland, Austria and the Netherlands. Those member states are opposed to the introduction of such a copyright fee, because they fear it will result in the migration of art sales to the US and the Far East, where resale rights do not exist. Germany and France, however, argue that the current mosaic of laws in the Union is breaking up the internal market and adversely affecting their auction rooms. Ministers held a first debate on the proposals, but made no decision.

INTERNAL Market Commissioner Mario Monti told ministers that his proposals to ensure the free movement of citizens throughout the EU should be dealt with under the first pillar of the Maastricht Treaty. The UK, keen to maintain its veto in this sensitive area, is insisting that they should be brought forward under the intergovernmental third pillar of the treaty. But Monti stressed that until people could move around the bloc unhindered, they would not consider the single market a reality. He acknowledged, however, the need to consider free circulation of citizens in the light of security matters such as drugs and illegal immigration.

THE UK continued to make good its promise to disrupt EU business at the meeting, blocking four measures as part of its campaign to ease the ban on British beef. UK Minister Roger Freeman blocked two resolutions on legislative simplification and administrative cooperation, and a Commission plan to harmonise accounting standards. He also blocked an action plan for European industry.