This week the European Parliament will vote on the proposal for a Regulation on ‘Circularity Requirements for Vehicle Design and the Management of End-of-Life Vehicles’, which was originally presented by the European Commission in July 2023.

The file is now in the final phase of the ordinary legislative procedure and is very close to adoption. The most significant change for us is that motorcycles move from being largely outside the EU’s end-of-life vehicle regime to being fully integrated into it. The file is fundamentally about recycling, circularity, dismantling and producer responsibility, not about roadworthiness testing or road safety regulation.

The Council of the European Union adopted its negotiating position (‘general approach’) on 17 June 2025. The European Parliament adopted its first-reading position on 9 September 2025. Parliament and Council reached a provisional political agreement during trilogue negotiations on 12 December 2025. The agreement was endorsed by Member States’ representatives and approved by Parliament’s responsible committees on 25 February 2026.

The provisional agreement still requires formal adoption by the Parliament in plenary, which is planned for 18 June 2026, and formal adoption by the Council. The regulation will replace the current End-of-Life Vehicles Directive and 3R Type-Approval Directive with a single regulation. Major provisions include:

• Design requirements to improve vehicle reuse, dismantling, recycling and recovery;
• Mandatory recycled-plastic content targets in new vehicles;
• Possible future recycled-content targets for steel, aluminium and critical raw materials;
• Stricter traceability rules for end-of-life vehicles;
• Measures against illegal exports and ‘missing vehicles’;
• Extension of the framework beyond cars and vans to include motorcycles, heavy-duty vehicles and certain other vehicle categories.

The Council successfully pushed for the inclusion of two- and three-wheel vehicles and quadricycles within the scope of the regulation. The agreed text therefore introduces circularity and end-of-life management requirements for motorcycles that were not covered by the previous ELV legislation. For motorcycles, the most important point is that this regulation is not a roadworthiness or technical inspection measure. It is primarily a circular economy and end-of-life management regulation. Therefore, the obligations fall mainly on manufacturers, importers, recyclers, and treatment facilities rather than on individual riders.

Motorcycles will become subject to EU-wide rules on collection at end of life, depollution procedures, dismantling requirements, recovery and recycling processes, and producer responsibility obligations. Manufacturers of motorcycles will be required to ensure that vehicles are designed so that components and materials can be removed more easily for reuse, remanufacturing and recycling. Manufacturers will have Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) and will become responsible for the end-of-life treatment of motorcycles they place on the EU market. That includes financing collection systems, financing authorised treatment, ensuring free take-back mechanisms, and participating in cross-border EPR systems when motorcycles reach end of life in another Member State.

The regulation creates EU-wide criteria for determining when a vehicle is an end-of-life vehicle rather than a used vehicle. Once a motorcycle is classified as an ELV, it must be processed through authorised channels and cannot simply be exported or resold as a used vehicle. This could become relevant for salvage motorcycles, heavily damaged motorcycles, insurance write-offs, and export of wrecked motorcycles outside the EU.

When motorcycles reach the end of their life, authorised treatment facilities will have to carry out prescribed treatment operations, including depollution and mandatory removal of certain parts and materials before shredding or recycling.

So who decides if a motorcycle is at the end of its life? Under the proposed EU regulation, neither the owner nor the government automatically decides that a motorcycle is at the end of its life. Instead, the regulation establishes objective criteria to determine whether a vehicle is an ELV. The key question is whether the motorcycle is irreparable.

In practice:

• The owner may voluntarily surrender the motorcycle to an authorized treatment facility for destruction.
• An insurer, repairer, dismantler, or treatment facility may conclude that the motorcycle meets the ELV criteria.
• National authorities (registration authorities, customs authorities, enforcement agencies) may assess the vehicle’s status when it is being exported, registered, sold, or inspected.

The Commission’s proposal states that a vehicle should be considered an ELV when it is technically irreparable or not economically repairable, meaning the cost of restoring it to a condition where it could obtain a roadworthiness certificate exceeds its market value. Importantly, the proposal does not allow a motorcycle to be classified as an ELV merely because it is old or difficult to repair. A heavily damaged older motorcycle may have a market value lower than the cost of professional repairs, even though an enthusiast could restore it.

The Commission argues that the detailed criteria are intended to prevent fraudulent exports of wrecks disguised as used vehicles while preserving the rights of legitimate owners and collectors. Historic vehicles are specifically excluded from the ELV rules. Whether a damaged motorcycle is no longer economically repairable appears to be a decision that must be based on EU-defined technical criteria (annex I of the proposal). Note: the Council clearly states that “competent authorities of a Member State may exempt a vehicle from the status of end-of-life vehicle when the vehicle concerned is subject to repair, upon request by its owner”.

Written by Wim Taal

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