EU governments and MEPs have clinched agreement on a new law requiring car makers to bear the cost of recycling scrap cars…

Date: 25/05/2000

...which manufacturers fear will cost billions of euro to implement. Under the terms of the deal reached following negotiations which continued into the early hours of the morning, car makers will have to pay most of the cost of taking back all cars sold after 1 January 2001 when they reach the end of their lives. From 2007, they will have to take back all scrap cars, regardless of when they were built, although the compromise allows countries to move to this regime sooner if they want to.