The UK is in the process of transposing European Parliament and Council Directive 2000/53/EC (the ‘ELV Directive’) into UK law. By way of background information, the DTI has commissioned Perchards to provide a series of short factual reports on end-of-life vehicle legislation in other member states. The Directive lays down measures aimed at preventing waste from motor vehicles and vehicle components that have reached the end of their life-cycle and promoting vehicle reuse, recycling and other forms of recovery. It also aims to bring about an improvement in the environmental performance of all the economic operators involved in the life-cycle of vehicles, and especially the operators directly involved in the treatment of end-of-life vehicles. Member States should have transposed the Directive into national law by 21 April 2002, but none were able to meet this deadline. However, all have subsequently made progress in developing adequate legislation and have made commitments on the timeframe of implementation. The ten new member states should have transposed the Directive by the date of their accession, i.e. 1 May 2004. To date, 14 of 17 member states surveyed have largely transposed the major requirements of the ELV Directive, and the remaining have transposition legislation in the drafting stage.