Report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council – Quality of petrol and diesel fuel used for road transport in the European Union: Eighth annual report (Reporting year 2009)

Directive 98/70/EC sets minimum technical specifications on health and environmental grounds for fuels to be used for vehicles equipped with positive-ignition and compression-ignition engines. Fuel quality is environmentally important because it affects engine pollution emissions and thus air quality. It also affects the ease and cost with which desired pollution and greenhouse gas emission limits can be achieved by manufacturers.

Non-respect of the fuel specification can lead to increased emissions (for example excess oxygenates can increase NOx emissions) and might damage engine and exhaust after-treatment systems (for example excess sulphur damaging catalysts) leading to greater air pollution. In order to ensure compliance with the fuel quality standards mandatory under this Directive, Member States are required to introduce fuel quality monitoring systems.

The specifications for petrol and diesel sold in the European Union are laid down in the annexes to Directive 98/70/EC. From 1 January 2005 only one set of fuel specifications has applied. The Directive requires Member States to report summaries of the quality of fuels sold in their territories. From 2004 onwards, Member States are required to report on their monitoring in accordance with European Standard EN 14274, or with systems with an equivalent degree of confidence.

Article 8 of Directive 98/70/EC, as amended by Article 1(5) of Directive 2003/17/EC, requires the Commission to publish the results of Member States’ fuel quality reporting. In compliance with this request, this eighth Commission Report summarises the quality of petrol and diesel, as well as the volumes sold, in the EU for the year 2009.

• Primary Source

EUR-Lex: COM(2012)127: Follow the progress of this document through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2012:127:FIN

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