Better regulation: Agreement on a streamlined Machinery Directive
The Commission has welcomed today’s agreement in the European Parliament to streamline the Machinery Directive (98/37/EC). It covers anything from small consumer products such as handheld power tools, outboard engines to large professional products such as paper making machinery or tower cranes. They can circulate freely in the internal market as long as they respect the directive’s essential health and safety requirements ensuring the protection of consumers and workers.
The agreed text improves legal certainty by clarifying the directive’s scope and meaning by removing ambiguities that have led to diverging interpretations. For example, there will be clearer borderlines to other directives such as the Lifts and Low Voltage Directives. Market surveillance and surveillance of product certification bodies is made more efficient by improved co-ordination at EU-level and monitoring at national level.
The European Parliament’s adoption of the 2nd Reading Opinion enables a 2nd Reading Agreement with the Council on a streamlined Machinery Directive. Commission Vice-President Günter Verheugen, responsible for enterprise and industry policy said: “This is a typical example of how European law making does not create more, but less red tape. The EU is the world largest exporter of machines and mechanical equipment. The new directive will make the life of enterprises easier and will reinforce their strong competitiveness”. The EU’s mechanical engineering sector produced goods to the value of EUR 402 billion in 2004. It employs over 2.6 million engineers, technicians and workers, mostly highly skilled. The sector’s production volume exceeds Japan’s and USA’s and the EU exports volume (EUR 150 billion) is clearly ahead of the USA (EUR 62 billion) and Japan (EUR 67 billion).
The Machinery Directive, an early example of the “New Approach” to technical harmonisation and standardisation for products, relies on: mandatory essential health and safety requirements (which must be met before machinery is placed on the market); voluntary harmonised standards drawn up by the European Committees for Standardisation (CEN) and Electro-technical Standardisation (Cenelec); conformity assessment procedures tailored to the type and level of risks associated with machinery and, the CE marking, affixed by manufacturers to signify compliance with all relevant directives. Machinery bearing this marking may circulate freely within the European Economic Area. The directive has greatly simplified the national laws that preceded it and thus removed many barriers to trade within the EU. It has also reduced the social cost of accidents.
New Approach directives apply only to products which are intended to be placed (or put into service) on the EU market for the first time. Experts representing a broad range of interests have advised the Commission, the European Parliament and the Council on streamlining the Directive and have agreed that it could lead to substantive improvements to safety in the workplace. Its implications have been discussed with a very wide audience of interested parties.
For more information, please see http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/mechan_equipment/machinery/index.htm