Simultaneously with the impact assessment and the preparation of a new proposal, the Commission initiated dialogue with EU countries to plan for and organise future work to adapt the acquis (i.e. the harmonised standards, the European assessment documents and the legal acts of the European Commission). Adapting the acquis is necessary in any case and irrespective of the final form the revision may take.
Rationale
The original process for delivering harmonised technical specifications under the Construction Products Directive (CPD), and continued under the Construction Products Regulation (CPR), lacks coherence. The evaluation of the CPR also states that the current process of developing technical specifications is underperforming.
Existing harmonised technical specifications are mostly incomplete as they are CPD-based and fail to address the specificities of the CPR. To a large extent, they do not even cover most of the basic work requirements (BWR) set out in Annexe I to the CPR. As a result, several product groups that could benefit from harmonisation are not covered at all, and those that are have incomplete coverage.
Purpose
The purpose is to ensure the compliance of the Acquis with the revised or current Construction Products Regulation (CPR). This approach is necessary regardless of whether the CPR is revised or not. If the CPR stays the same there will be better planning of new standardisation requests, European Commission acts, and work of the European Organisation for Technical Assessment (EOTA). In case of a CPR revision, the management of the Acquis might eventually become the logistic basis for the adoption of technical specifications by the European Commission, if legislators opt for this path.
Not all acts belonging to the CPR Acquis can be revised at the same time. Therefore, work has started with identifying criteria to prioritise and assess product families before revising the technical specifications.
For this exercise, the European Commission is in continuous dialogue with the national authorities. We invite stakeholders to participate in this process as soon as it moves to the more operational stages (Q4 2021).
Two dedicated questions and answers sessions on the CPR Acquis took place with representatives of CPR stakeholders on 1 July 2020 and 13 July 2020. Another meeting was held on 28 April 2021.
Progress
The process started in Q4 2021 by reviewing the Acquis of the two top priorities identified, corresponding to the priorities of
- 'precast normal/lightweight/autoclaved aerated concrete products’
- ‘structural metallic products and ancillaries’
In Q4 2022, two additional subgroups started, corresponding to the priorities
- ‘reinforcing and prestressing steel for concrete (and ancillaries)'
- 'post tensioning kits’
- ‘doors, windows, shutters, gates and related building hardware’
The thematic subgroup on ‘environmental sustainability of construction products’ also started in Q4 2022.
In Q3 2023 two additional subgroups start, corresponding to the priorities
- 'cement, building limes and other hydraulic binders'
- 'thermal insulating products and composite insulating kits/systems'
CPR stakeholders interested in contributing to this process may send an e-mail to grow-construction
ec [dot] europa [dot] eu (grow-construction[at]ec[dot]europa[dot]eu), indicating the reasons for their interest, the area of interest, the kind of technical contribution offered and the resources they would make available. The Commission will evaluate these inquiries and will invite appropriate stakeholders to contribute.
We will publish all relevant documents on this web page.