Pressure equipment: harmonisation of essential safety requirements

The Commission amended its proposal on pressure equipment, incorporating 12 of the 14 amendments adopted by the European Parliament at second reading. These amendments mainly seek to: - clarify which equipment is excluded from the field of application of the directive and emphasize that the free movement of these products must be guaranteed in future if present measures prove to be inadequate; - include a declaration by the Commission in the Council minutes making provision to examine the need to integrate Directive 87/404/EEC into the directive on pressure equipment in the light of the experience acquired; - insist on the need for the committee set up under Directive 83/189/EEC to obtain, if necessary, the advice of technical experts; - clarify the text with regard to certification procedures, scope and the obligation for manufacturers to supply proof of compliance with the directive; - require Member States to establish safety rules to be complied with at trade fairs; - encourage cooperation between Member States with regard to market supervision; - emphasize that fundamental requirements are open-ended; - strengthen a fundamental requirement with regard to the risk of overheating. However, the Commission was unable to incorporate amendments which required: - controls of category III and IV pressure equipment to be carried out in all cases by a properly qualified third party independent of the designer/manufacturer; - account to be taken of applied certification procedures and not the categories provided for in the common position when approving staff and operational procedures.�