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Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
Press release12 April 2018Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs

First lists of references of harmonised standards on personal protective equipment and cableway installations published

The first list of references of harmonised standards in support of Regulation (EU) 2016/425 on personal protective equipment was published in the Official Journal (OJ) of the European Union C 113 of 27 March 2018 (172 references) together with the updated list of references of harmonised standards in support of Directive 89/686/EEC on personal protective equipment (10 new references).

The first list of references of harmonised standards in support of Regulation (EU) 2016/424 on cableway installations was published in OJ C 114 of 28 March 2018 (15 references). In addition, the last dates to confer presumption of conformity was set for harmonised standards under Directive 89/686/EEC on personal protective equipment, Directive 2000/9/EC on cableway installations and Directive 2009/142/EC on appliances burning gaseous fuels to be repealed with effect from 21 April 2018.

In certain EU harmonisation legislation for products, voluntary harmonised standards, developed by the European standardisation organisations (CEN, Cenelec and ETSI), may be used by manufacturers to demonstrate compliance of their products with applicable essential requirements.

Such harmonised standards grant a presumption of conformity with legally binding requirements after the European Commission has published their references in the Official Journal.

The publication of the references of harmonised standards in the OJ does not prevent manufacturers from applying any other technical solution or undergoing the alternative conformity assessment procedures provided for in sectoral legislation to demonstrate the compliance of their products.

Directive 89/686/EEC on personal protective equipment, Directive 2000/9/EC on cableway installations and Directive 2009/142/EC on appliances burning gaseous fuels are repealed with effect from 21 April 2018 and consequently the Commission has set the last dates until which harmonised standards published under these directives will confer a presumption of conformity. For harmonised standards published in the OJ under Directive 2000/9/EC and Directive 2009/142/EC it is until 20 April 2018 (included) while for harmonised standards published in the OJ under Directive 89/686/EEC it is until 20 April 2019 because of the transitional period provided in Article 47 of the directive.

There are over 30 EU directives or regulations where harmonised standards can be used as a means to demonstrate compliance with EU legislation. The Commission frequently updates the lists of references of harmonised standards and new references are usually published in the OJ on the second Friday of each month.

Lists of references are published in the OJ but the harmonised standards webpage gives easy access to all the latest references.

Updated lists of references:

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