The Council of State has decided. After having been suspended in August 2021 by the government then repealed in July 2022, technical control for two-wheelers was reinstated on Monday, October 31. Initially, its application was planned for the beginning of 2023, before its cancellation by the government.
“The decision taken by the government on July 25, to reverse the application of technical control to two-wheelers that it had initially decided in August 2021, is illegal”estimated the highest administrative court in a press release, considering that it was a “excess of power”. On July 27, the Council of State had already ruled illegal two decrees which aimed to delay the entry into force of the compulsory technical inspection to January 2023 and then to suspend it.
According to the administrative body, the abolition of technical control should have been subject to public consultation “taking into account its direct and significant impact on the environment”.
Consultation “from the end of the week”
In addition, the measures proposed since by the government to derogate from the European obligation of technical control “do not comply” to European requirements, “because they are only at the draft stage or because they do not allow a sufficiently effective and significant improvement in the safety of motorcyclists on the road”according to the Council of State.
The government will ” very probably “ comply to this decision, but the technical control will have to be “the least penalizing possible”said Clément Beaune, Minister Delegate for Transport, on Tuesday, on France 2. “There are terms, all of this can be discussed”he continued, announcing the launch of a consultation “from the end of the week” with biker and road safety associations.
European regulations allow “significant leeway” to the governments, underlined the Minister, adding that the methods of application and the timetable remained ” to define “.
#2wheels | “I will hold consultation meetings with the biker federations and the a… https://t.co/McfqfdSkR5
A European bond
The European Commission had introduced, in 2014, the obligation for all the countries of the European Union to institute before the beginning of 2022 a technical control for two-wheelers of more than 125 cubic centimeters.
In the heart of summer 2021, the French government had finally published a decree establishing it, but only from the beginning of 2023. First twist: Emmanuel Macron had immediately assured that he would never apply this decisionbecause “it was not the time to bother the French”, in the words of an executive adviser. The Minister of Transport at the time, Jean-Baptiste Djebbari, had suspended it by decree.
The associations Respire, Ras le scoot and Paris without a car had seized the Council of State according to an emergency procedure to demand the application of the European directive as soon as possible. The highest administrative court in the country agreed with them in May, ordering the executive to apply it from October 2022.
On July 26, a new twist: the government issued a decree repealing the very first decree establishing this control, on the pretext of a clause in European legislation allowing to take instead “alternative measures”.
It was on this July decree, attacked by the same NGOs, that the Council of State ruled this time, the public rapporteur recommending its cancellation at the hearing.