The Departments Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs of the European Commission, created the 22th of January a public consultation on EU rules for products used in the construction of buildings and infrastructure works.
The public consultation, which ended on April 16, was done in the framework of Regulation (EU) n ° 305/2011 which provide harmonized conditions for the commercialization of construction products, set standards for the evaluation of the performance of construction products and they communicated in technical language, common to the all European community.
Independently, the Member States are free to establish their own regulations for the design and safety of buildings and infrastructures, respecting the common technical language. For that, try that all products carry the CE marked, which allows compare and obtain reliable information of the performance of construction products. This prevents that the foreign products will be excluded from national markets.
Despite this, official sources, such as 2016 report on the implementation of the CPR, opinions from the REFIT platform and studies on European construction sector regulations have identified several problems for apply the Construction Products Regulation (EU), such as a need for clarification regarding simplification provisions, limited evidence of uptake of simplification provisions/lighter regimes by micro enterprises, etc.
In addition, the European Commission’s energy union package of November 2016 mentions the need to address the fragmentation of the internal market for construction products. Reason why, the Commission assesses the possible impact of a revise EU rules on construction products.
Encourage the opinion of citizens and stakeholders
For all this, this consultation was launched, which complements previous ones, with the aim of encouraging citizens and stakeholders to give their views on key issues relevant for the evaluation and impact assessment.
The Query was aiming to all citizens or organizations and in particular, contributions are sought from:
- Interested individuals and users of construction products.
- Companies or sole traders, especially small and medium-sized enterprises.
- Business representatives.
- Representatives of construction workers.
- Technical bodies.
- Public authorities and testing bodies.
- NGO.
- Academia, research and technology organizations.
- Consumer organizations.
The results, which are not yet available, will inform the Commission’s evaluation and impact assessment report and the legislative proposal accompanying the report, if the outcome of the evaluation points towards the need to change the EU rules on construction products.