Opinion on the legal basis of the circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles, amending Regulations (EU) 2018/858 and 2019/1020 and repealing Directives 2000/53/EC and 2005/64/EC

22.4.2026

Mr Pierfrancesco Maran

Chair

Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety

BRUSSELS

Ms Anna Cavazzini

Chair

Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO)

BRUSSELS

Subject: Opinion on the legal basis of the circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles, amending Regulations (EU) 2018/858 and 2019/1020 and repealing Directives 2000/53/EC and 2005/64/EC (COM(2023)0451 – C90308/2023 – 2023/0284(COD))

Dear Chairs,

By letter of 14 January 2026, you requested the Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), pursuant to Rule 41(2) of the Rules of Procedure, to provide an opinion on the appropriateness of the amended legal basis of the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles 2023/0284 (COD) (the “proposal”).

JURI considered the above question at its meeting of 15-16 April 2026.

I - Background

ENVI jointly with IMCO are in inter-institutional negotiations on the proposal. The aim of the proposal is to facilitate the transition of the automotive sector to the circular economy, at all stages of the vehicle - from design to final treatment at end-of-life (end-of-life vehicles, thereafter ELVs).

The proposal is based on Article 114 TFEU. In the report adopted on 7 July 2025 in joint committee procedure under Rule 59, ENVI and IMCO did not amend the Commission’s choice of legal basis. The mandate adopted in plenary on 9 September 2025 also left it unchanged. In its General Approach, the Council adds Article 192(1) TFEU as the legal basis for Chapters IV and V of the proposal concerning the management of ELVs and used vehicles and their export. The Council argues this change reflects the dual purpose of the proposal, i.e. to improve the functioning of the internal market, on one hand, and to protect the environment, on the other.

During inter-institutional negotiations on 11 December 2025, the change of legal basis has provisionally been agreed by the co-legislators. In view of the above and pursuant to Article 41 of the Rules of Procedure, ENVI and IMCO requested JURI, as the committee responsible for legal affairs, to provide an opinion on the appropriateness of adding Article 192(1) as a second legal basis.

II - The relevant Treaty Articles

Chapter IV of Title VII of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on “Approximation of laws” reads (emphasis added):

Article 114

(ex Article 95 TEC)

1. Save where otherwise provided in the Treaties, the following provisions shall apply for the achievement of the objectives set out in Article 26. The European Parliament and the Council shall, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and after consulting the Economic and Social Committee, adopt the measures for the approximation of the provisions laid down by law, regulation or administrative action in Member States which have as their object the establishment and functioning of the internal market.

[…]

4. If, after the adoption of a harmonisation measure by the European Parliament and the Council, by the Council or by the Commission, a Member State deems it necessary to maintain national provisions on grounds of major needs referred to in Article 36, or relating to the protection of the environment or the working environment, it shall notify the Commission of these provisions as well as the grounds for maintaining them.

5. Moreover, without prejudice to paragraph 4, if, after the adoption of a harmonisation measure by the European Parliament and the Council, by the Council or by the Commission, a Member State deems it necessary to introduce national provisions based on new scientific evidence relating to the protection of the environment or the working environment on grounds of a problem specific to that Member State arising after the adoption of the harmonisation measure, it shall notify the Commission of the envisaged provisions as well as the grounds for introducing them.

6. The Commission shall, within six months of the notifications as referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5, approve or reject the national provisions involved after having verified whether or not they are a means of arbitrary discrimination or a disguised restriction on trade between Member States and whether or not they shall constitute an obstacle to the functioning of the internal market.

In the absence of a decision by the Commission within this period the national provisions referred to in paragraphs 4 and 5 shall be deemed to have been approved.

When justified by the complexity of the matter and in the absence of danger for human health, the Commission may notify the Member State concerned that the period referred to in this paragraph may be extended for a further period of up to six months.

[…]

Title XX of Part Three of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, on “Environment” reads (emphasis added):

Article 192

(ex Article 175 TEC)

1. The European Parliament and the Council, acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and after consulting the Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions, shall decide what action is to be taken by the Union in order to achieve the objectives referred to in Article 191.

[...]

Article 193

(ex Article 176 TEC)

The protective measures adopted pursuant to Article 192 shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures. Such measures must be compatible with the Treaties. They shall be notified to the Commission.

III – CJEU case law on the choice of legal basis

The Court of Justice has traditionally viewed the question of the appropriate legal basis as an issue of constitutional significance, guaranteeing compliance with the principle of conferred powers (Article 5 TEU) and determining the nature and scope of the Union’s competence.

According to well-established case law, the legal basis of a Union act does not depend on an institution's conviction as to the objective pursued, but must be determined according to objective criteria amenable to judicial review, including in particular the aim and the content of the measure.

If examination of a measure reveals that it pursues a twofold purpose or that it has a twofold component and if one of those is identifiable as the main or predominant purpose or component, whereas the other is merely incidental, that measure must be based on a single legal basis, namely that required by the main or predominant purpose or component. Only exceptionally, if it is established that the act simultaneously pursues a number of objectives, inextricably linked, without one being secondary and indirect in relation to the other, may such an act be founded on the various corresponding legal bases. This would however only be possible if the procedures laid down for the respective legal bases are not incompatible with and do not undermine the right of the European Parliament.

IV – Aim and content of the proposed Regulation

Pursuant to its Article 1, the proposal “lays down circularity requirements on vehicle design and production related to reusability, recyclability and recoverability and the use of recycled content, which are to be verified at type-approval of vehicles, and on information and labelling requirements on parts, components and materials in vehicles. It also lays down requirements on extended producer responsibility, collection and treatment of end-of-life vehicles, as well as on the export of used vehicles from the Union to third countries”.

The proposal repeals and replaces Directives 2005/64/EC and 2000/53/EC. Directive 2005/64/EC concerns the type-approval of motor vehicles with regard to their reusability, recyclability and recoverability. It was adopted on the internal market legal basis (Article 95 TEC, which corresponds to the current Article 114 TFEU). Directive 2000/53/EC relates to, among others, reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery of end-of life vehicles and their components. It was adopted on the environmental legal basis (Article 175(1) TEC, which corresponds to the current Article 192(1) TFEU).

Thus, the proposal integrates elements from both directives, joining together internal market and environment-oriented considerations. Accordingly, Chapters II and III set out circularity requirements concerning vehicle design and information and labelling requirements for manufacturers, thus corresponding to the internal market dimension. On the other hand, Chapter IV deals with management of end-of-life vehicles, thus corresponding to the environmental dimension (waste management elements). In a similar vein, the new provision on the transfer of vehicles within the Union (now Article 37 at the beginning of Chapter V) aims at ensuring that what is subject to transfers is used vehicles rather than end-of-life vehicles.

It is thus admitted that the proposal, in the form agreed in the provisional agreement between co-legislators, pursues two main aims that appear as equally important: one concerning the harmonisation of the internal market in respect of circularity requirements concerning vehicle design and information and labelling requirements for manufacturers; the other one concerning the protection of the environment by means of rules on the management of end-of-life vehicles.

V – Analysis

As stated in Point III of this note, the case law requires that, for a Union act to be based on a multiple legal basis, the different aims and the components referring to the different legal bases must be equally important and must be linked to each other in an indissociable manner. Furthermore, the different legal bases must be procedurally compatible.

In that regard, the analysis of the Legal Service points out the fact that Article 193 TFEU (which applies in respect of acts adopted on the basis of Article 192 TFEU), on the one side, and Article 114(4) and (5) TFEU, on the other, both allow Member States to deviate from a harmonising Union measure. However, the conditions set out in these two Treaty provisions allowing for such national provisions are different.

Article 193 TFEU provides that “the protective measures adopted pursuant to Article 192 shall not prevent any Member State from maintaining or introducing more stringent protective measures. Such measures must be compatible with the Treaties. They shall be notified to the Commission”.

Article 193 TFEU clearly states its scope and imposes two conditions for its application. On the one hand, it is applicable only with reference to measures that have Article 192 TFEU as their legal basis. On the other hand, it only allows for more stringent national measures that are (a) compatible with the Treaty, and (b) notified to the Commission.

The condition (a) means that the national measures can go beyond Union legislation adopted on the basis of Article 192 TFEU, but they must respect other Treaty provisions, like the prohibition of discrimination on grounds of nationality, the principle of proportionality, or the prohibition of measures of equivalent effect to quantitative restrictions on imports.

Pursuant to Article 114(5) TFEU, a Member State, in order to be authorised by the Commission in accordance with Article 114(6) to introduce more stringent measures, must comply with a number of requirements: i) the national provision must be based on new scientific evidence; ii) the national provision must relate to the protection of the environment or to the working environment; iii) a problem specific to the Member State that wishes to introduce the national provision must justify the measure; and iv) that problem must arise after the adoption of the harmonisation measure.

Pursuant to Article 114(4), a Member State, in order to be authorised by the Commission to maintain more stringent measures, must justify that the national provision is necessary on grounds of major needs referred to in Article 36 TFEU, or relating to the protection of the environment or the working environment. Article 114(4) and (5) TFEU therefore entails material and procedural requirements which differ considerably from those set out in Article 193 TFEU.

The Legal Service concludes that the simultaneous recourse to Articles 114 and 192(1) TFEU as legal basis for a given Union act is precluded since the conditions for adopting more stringent national measures, as applicable in the areas covered by each of those provisions, are incompatible with each other. At the same time, it is important to underline that the incompatibility between the provisions at hand does not arise from the divergent procedural conditions concerning the adoption of the Union act itself, as both Articles 114(1) and 192(1) are subject to the ordinary legislative procedure. Rather, that incompatibility is due to the legal uncertainty which would result from the concomitant application of Articles 114 and 193 TFEU in respect of the potential adoption of more stringent national measures.

It should be noted that, in principle, when the legal basis for a legislative act is determined, such legal basis underlies the entirety of the act, and not just part of it. Therefore, choosing to base the act on a dual legal basis would mean in the present case that the Member States might take measures under Article 193 TFEU in relation to all provisions of the proposal, including for the product requirements. Such an approach could potentially undermine the internal market rationale behind the proposal.

It is for that reason that the Union legislator may be led to make use of the legislative technique called “saucissonnage”. That means, in practice, that the legislator creates “compartments” within the legislative act, by specifying in the citations which article of the act is based on which legal basis respectively. In such a situation, the question of incompatibility of the respective legal bases described above cannot logically be raised.

In the present case, the text as politically agreed specifies in its citations the provisions that justify the use of Article 192(1) TFEU as an additional legal basis, i.e. Chapter IV (Articles 14-36) and the new Article 37 on the transfer of ownership of used vehicles within the Union. As a consequence, it is only in respect of those provisions that Member States should be entitled to introduce more protective measures in accordance with Article 193 TFEU. By contrast, in respect of all other measures in the proposal, which are thus adopted pursuant to Article 114 TFEU, Articles 114(4) and (5) would apply in full.

Two further comments have been raised by the Legal Service in this respect.

First, the legislative technique called saucissonage does not seem to be fully consistent with the criteria set by the Court of Justice for choosing a dual (or multiple) legal basis, namely that the act must have different aims and components, all of equal importance and linked to each other in an indissociable manner. In fact, by identifying the provisions of the act covered by each of the legal bases relied on, such method makes those provisions and the aim they pursue distinct and dissociable from the other provisions of the act. As a result, a dual legal basis would not be justified.

Having said that, so far, the Court of Justice has not had the occasion to express itself on the use of the technique of saucissonnage, and its potential impact on the validity of the act in which it is used. There is thus no conclusive legal argument against that technique.

Second, it is also relevant to recall that such technique has already been used by the legislator of the Union in a series of acts adopted on the basis of Articles 114 TFEU (previously 95 TEC) and 192 TFEU (previously 175 TEC). Therefore, a number of comparable precedents already exist.

VI – Conclusion and recommendation

At its meeting of 16 April 2026 the Committee on Legal Affairs decided, by nineteen votes to three with no abstentions, to recommend to the Committee on the Environment, Climate and Food Safety and the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection that the addition of Article 192(1) TFEU as second legal basis for the proposed Regulation on circularity requirements for vehicle design and on management of end-of-life vehicles appears to be acceptable inasmuch as it is specified that the provisions of Chapter IV and Article 37 are based on Article 192(1) TFEU, whilst the rest of the proposed Regulation remains based on Article 114 TFEU.

Yours sincerely,

Ilhan Kyuchyuk