Tractors. The government wants to limit the practice

The assumptions of the project included provisions regarding, among others The fact that agricultural tractors imported from outside the European Union will be subject to the same procedure for allowing traffic as new vehicles.

The idea is to prevent the celebration of approval. This procedure consisted of introducing new tractors not meeting European standards to the Polish market, but registered as used machines.

The main goal of the amendment to the Act on vehicle approval systems and their equipment and some other acts planned by the Ministry of Infrastructure is to regulate the principles of admission to traffic in Poland vehicles imported from the European Union and from outside the EU in the context of regulations resulting from European regulations.

The Ministry of Infrastructure pointed out that the European regulations do not contain a uniform definition of a new vehicle, while Polish regulations regarding vehicle registration refer to new vehicles. Therefore, there are doubts about what documents should be submitted at the first registration on the Polish territory of a vehicle imported from abroad, in particular outside the EU.

As the authors of the project pointed out in the assumptions, numerous signals about the problems of registration bodies with the application of current regulations reach the Ministry of Infrastructure, especially taking into account some directly applied EU regulations.

The definition of a “new vehicle” is not only the subject of European case -law, but also of national case -law, therefore – in the opinion of Mi – it is necessary to develop precise regulations in the discussed scope.

“In addition, the issue related to the admission of agricultural tractors to traffic in the Republic of Poland is the subject of many prosecutor's proceedings, complaints to the European Commission (EC), as well as reports and media articles, in which it is indicated that the current practice of the registration bodies legalizes the process of placing agricultural tractors not meeting European approval requirements in the EU” – emphasized the ministry.

The ministry reminded that the issue of admission to traffic in Poland agricultural tractors from third countries was discussed in June last year. During the meeting of representatives of me with the EC, and the Commission confirmed that used agricultural tractors from third countries should be treated as new vehicles for the purposes of their admission to road traffic in the EU.

“During the meeting, the EC was informed about the commencement of legislative work to clearly regulate the principles of admission of used agricultural tractors outside the EU. As a consequence, the draft law will be determined that the procedure of the national individual vehicle admission currently applicable for new vehicles will also cover used agricultural tractors imported from countries outside the EU,” the resort indicated.

The solutions provided for in the project are also to refer to allowing used vehicles in Poland from third countries other than agricultural tractors. They are to be covered by the national individual approval under the new procedure implemented by the authorized diagnostician at the Vehicle Control Station, with the inclusion, in certain situations, of the technical service.

In recent months, there have been reports in the press that in 2016-2023 thousands of Belarusian tractors came to Poland, with the passivity of Polish authorities and special services. These tractors did not meet EU standards.

In December last year Supreme Administrative Court He dismissed the cassation appeal by the MTS Belmarus dealer from the judgment of the Provincial Administrative Court in Szczecin in a case concerning six separate cases of withdrawal of the registration of MTZ BELARUS tractors.

Earlier, the Provincial Administrative Court annulled the decision of the Local Government Appeal Board in Koszalin, which stated that registration was not carried out in accordance with the provisions, but the law was not broken in a gross way. The SKO decision was appealed to the Provincial Administrative Court, in which the violation of the registration regulations was gross. The court shared this opinion.