Newsletter

CECIP Newsletter Q1 2019

Amendment to EU Directive on definition of kilogram

In November the new definition of the kilogram was approved at the General Conference on Weights and Measures and this new definition will come into force on 20 May 2019. Therefore, the relevant European legislation needs to be amended as well. The European Commission is preparing an amendment to Directive 80/181/EEC on the definition of SI base units. A first draft of the amendment has been published and can be found here (annexes). It is expected that this new amendment to Directive 80/181/EEC will be published in one of the coming months.

Simplify software requirements to make them futureproof

Last year CECIP published its position on the simplification of software requirements. This position stressed that the detailed software requirements for weighing instruments that are set in WELMEC guides are overly technical and complicated. They are also open to different interpretations. Therefore, CECIP is calling for simpler, consistent and futureproof requirements set in WELMEC guides.

The position is now updated with two main new concrete actions. These are:

Incorporate guide 2.3 requirements in guide 7.2

Whilst recognising the significance of the Guide 2.3 in the development and design of Non-automatic weighing instruments CECIP also recognise that the Guide 2.3 is now anachronistic and does not reflect the rapidly changing technologies in the market place. CECIP is of the view that the improved methods of software control can most easily achieved by revoking the Guide 2.3 and incorporating requirements that relate to NAWI’s in the Guide 7.2.

Further develop risk-based approach

Current WELMEC Guides only consider technical solutions to control software and do not consider procedural quality-based solutions that would enable manufacturers to demonstrate compliance via other methods. The present technical solutions can be inflexible with regard to rapidly developing new technologies and do not necessarily enable manufacturers to ensure technical compliance easily. CECIP would encourage WG7 to further develop the risk-based approach that is currently being worked on with the ultimate goal of allowing all stakeholders to use recognised risk management and quality assurance techniques in the evaluation of their software.

CECIP calls on the relevant WELMEC working groups to make the necessary changes to make the software requirements ready for the future and not hamper innovation in the European weighing industry.

The updated position paper can be found here.

European Commission publishes guidance document to prepare for a hard Brexit

At the moment of writing this article (25 March 2019) it is still not sure how the relationship between the UK and EU will look like in the future. There might be a Brexit without a withdrawal agreement (i.e. a hard Brexit), a Brexit with a withdrawal agreement and transition period and it is not sure when this could take place. To help companies with identifying the impact of a hard Brexit, the European Commission recently published a document. This comes on top of the previously published notice.

For all companies it is important to be prepared for the different scenario´s. In the November CECIP newsletter was already explained that in case of a hard Brexit the type-approvals issued by a UK authority are not sufficient anymore to place weighing instruments on the EU27 market. These type-approvals need to be converted to EU27 type-approvals. To place products on the UK market it is sufficient to have an EU27 or UK issued type-approval for the short and medium term. Moreover, a CE-mark is still valid in both the EU27 and UK.

For products that are placed on the EU market with an UK issued type-approval before the UK withdrawal date no changes are necessary. The European Commission published recently a document describing the most important situations with respect to placing products on the market around the UK withdrawal date. You can find this document here.

Agreement on new Market Surveillance legislation

The three EU institutions have reached an agreement on the new market surveillance proposal as part of the goods package. The legislation aims at improving the functioning of the internal market by strengthening market surveillance covered by EU legislation. It does so by setting rules and procedures for both market surveillance authorities and economic operators such as manufacturers and importers. One of these requirements is for example that for each product sold on the EU market there should be at least one contact person for the market surveillance authorities. Additionally, this new legislation clearly states that products sold online to EU customers should meet EU legislation. Another aspect of interest to CECIP is a possible cooperation between CECIP and market surveillance authorities to identify uncompliant products.

You can find the full agreed text here. The agreed text still needs to follow the official procedure for publication, but it is expected for the coming weeks.

Low Voltage Directive evaluated by European Commission

The European Commission is currently evaluating the Low Voltage Directive 2014/35/EU. The legislation has been updated a couple year ago, but this was only to align the administrative procedures with the so-called New Legislative Framework. The technical requirements were not significantly modified in the last decades and are still based on the original requirements from 1973. Therefore, these technical requirements are currently being evaluated to see if changes are necessary. The evaluation should be finished this year and based on the results the European Commission will decide on the next steps.