Egara’s Springmeeting was held in Szeged, Hungary this year. The Hungarians made it a full 2 days event with a conference on Friday with participants and speakers from even Japan and Australia. Szegeds Vice-mayor opened the conference. GOE Chaiman Jószef Dobó Told GOE exists for 5 years now and the conference and EGARA meeting (together mentioned as World meeting) are very important and he was very proud to host this event.
Speakers in the morning were from the Hungarian Ministries of Environment and Justice and from research institutes. Especially the Ministries were looking for an approach to handle illegal companies that dismantle without being recognized and that do no deregistration so it’s not clear what their performance is. They are also interested in fighting car crime in general.
In the afternoon speakers told about EGARA and car dismantling in Australia and Japan.
The E-mult project was presented. This is a decision model for purchase of ELV’s, based on a scientific approach, with data from own input and other dismantling companies as well. In this system dismantlers share their knowledge about prices, gains, dismantling time, tools, techniques and legislation. It’s also possible to forward unwanted ELV’s to more intersted companies. The E-mult site can be found via the EGARA website.
The forum discussion was about closed registrationsystems, incentives to force a last owner to deliver his ELV at a legal company, monitoring, registration, multi-disciplinary approach against illegal operators, coöperation with the government and complaints at the EU. The Western EGARA members made clear that funded systems are not used to seduce people to deliver their ELV’s, but they are meant to cover the costs of free take back of ELV’s. It’s the national associations that should contact their governments and set up arrangements.
Day 2 was the EGARA meeting day. 12 From 15 members were present. Marc van den Brand acted as Chairman as Paul Fox was occupied and couldn’t visit the meeting. He asked for a moment of silence for Tiit Plaks who passed away last Februari.
Mentioned EGARA activities:
- Visit to IARC in Munich in March,
- The EGRARA Policy Statement for the national governments representants that joined the EU’s TAC meeting last March,
- Participating in the CEN airbag project. We see second hand airbags as aftermarket products. Sales shouldn’t be restricted in any way.
- Participation and visiting meetings E-mult project,
- Various articles for the website and national magazines
- Updating EGARA’s website
- Members business
- Finances
- Organisation and coördination Springmeeting
The current Executive committee is re-elected with Henk Jan Nix as General Secretary, who acts as such for a year now. The meeting chooses Siri Sveinsvoll as a member to fill in the vacancy Tiit left. She has a financial degree and participates in the family business for 3 years, now as third generation. She’s NBF’s (Norways association) chairman.
Other important items:
- Illegal ELV import to Poland. These ELV’s are dismantled out of sight of the government and are often abandoned. As re-registration is not compulsory for the export procedure in any country, this problem is hard to fight.
- Approach illegal companies in the UK. A succesful pilot was finished and its desired to continue on national level.
- Restriction of airbag sales in contracts with producers. EGARA warnes for restrictive conditions in such. This is the beginning of restriction of all second hand parts on wrong arguments. It’s not a safety isssue, it’s producers policy. Quality procedures should make these restrictions void.
- Problems with Implementation of the Directive. This leads in most cases to unfair competition and no level playingfield. Companies that have invested have a disadvatage to all kinds of free-riders. Agreed is to make an inventory and to present this to the EU.
Next meeting is in Brussels, November 27th of 28th. Slovakia would like to host the 2009 Springmeeting in Bratislava. Expected date is May 22nd-23rd.
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