Amending certain Directives as regards digitalisation and common specifications

PURPOSE: to rationalise and digitalise a number of sectoral Union legal acts lay down harmonised rules regarding the obligations of economic operators.

PROPOSED ACT: Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council.

ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council.

BACKGROUND: the European Commission has introduced a new package to simplify rules and reduce bureaucracy across the Single Market. This fourth simplification Omnibus package aims to make it easier for businesses to operate, innovate, and grow, while maintaining high standards of protection for consumers and the environment.

Reporting requirements play a key role in ensuring the correct enforcement and proper monitoring of legislation. The costs of reporting are overall largely offset by the benefits they bring, in particular as regards monitoring and ensuring compliance with key policy measures. However, reporting requirements can also impose a disproportionate burden on stakeholders, particularly SMEs and micro-companies. The accumulation of these requirements over time can result in redundant, duplicate or obsolete obligations, inefficient frequency and timing, or inadequate methods of collection. The Commission promotes the ‘digital by default’ principle in its Digital Strategy/Better regulation to support digital transformations, facilitating digital-ready policies that take into account the fast-evolving world of digitalisation and technology, and are digital, interoperable, future-proof and agile by default.

The proposal will accelerate the digital transition, eliminating cumbersome paper-based requirements in product legislation. Moreover, by digitising these requirements, companies can submit and distribute information more easily and national authorities can verify compliance more efficiently. It concerns limited and targeted changes of legislation with a view of simplifying reporting requirements and ensuring the digitalisation and alignment of common specifications.

CONTENT: against this background, the directives to be amended by this proposed Directive as regards alignment of common specifications provision, include namely Directive 2000/14/EC on the noise emission in the environment by equipment for use outdoors, Directive 2011/65/EU on restriction of hazardous substances in electrical and electronic equipment, Directive 2013/53/EU on recreational crafts, Directive 2014/29/EU on simple pressure vessels, Directive 2014/30/EU on electromagnetic compatibility, Directive 2014/31/EU on non-automatic weighing instruments, Directive 2014/32/EU on measuring instruments, Directive 2014/33/EU on lifts and safety components for lifts, Directive 2014/34/EU on equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres, Directive 2014/35/EU on electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits, Directive 2014/53/EU on radio equipment, Directive 2014/68/EU on pressure equipment and Directive 2014/90/EU on marine equipment, are harmonised pieces of product legislation under the single market rules, and contain the concept of harmonised standards and presumption of conformity.

This proposal includes:

- specifying that the EU declaration of conformity, or a similar document, must be drawn up in electronic form and made accessible through an internet address or machine-readable code when that declaration needs to accompany a product;

- the addition of a ‘digital contact’ as information to be indicated by manufacturers on products placed on the market to facilitate communication between economic operators and national authorities. Once the European Business Wallet is available, the digital address it provides to economic operators could constitute the “digital contact”;

- specifying that the instructions accompanying products may be provided in electronic form with the exception of safety information which should be provided on paper or marked on the product for consumers;

- the amendment of reporting obligations to national authorities that require a ‘paper or electronic format’ to ‘electronic form’ only;

- the insertion of an obligation for exchanges by electronic means between the economic operators and competent authorities;

- the introduction of a provision on common specifications as an alternative to harmonised standards;

- an obligation to provide the information contained in the EU declaration of conformity and instructions on the digital product passport when the product is subject to another Union legislation that requires the use of such a digital product passport.