Plans to regulate MOT-style testing across the European Union could put 19,000 UK-based garages under threat, according to the Retail Motor Industry Federation (RMI).

The proposals, put forward by the International Motor Vehicle Inspection Committee (CITA), suggest cross-EU alignment of Europe's various motor vehicle compulsory inspections. Under the scheme testers, along with national inspectorates such as VOSA, could face certification by an independent body.

Commenting on the plan Ian Davis-Knight, RMI operations manager, said: 'I am very wary of any form of accreditation being forced on testing stations.'

Davis-Knight believes that such a scheme would have a huge and prohibitive cost attached: 'We are concerned that the proposals would add another tier of bureaucracy, the cost of which is likely to be passed onto the garages themselves.'

He continues: 'Any scheme requiring the third party certification and monitoring of more than 19,000 test stations, along with a body such as VOSA, and then repeated a dozen times to roughly the same scale across a continent is going to be expensive.'