Europump, the influential body which represents 16 national pump associations in 12 EU Member States as well as Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, and the UK, has recently lent its considerable support to an important industry statement relating to the European Machinery Directive.

The Machinery Directive is unquestionably the single most important piece of legislation for the European manufacturing industry. Since its original publication in 1989, and subsequent revisions up to 2006, it has effectively provided the highest level of machinery safety in the world, successfully supported the Internal Market as well as EU
competitiveness, and continuously enabled the industry to innovate and thrive. In this context, it is important that the future legislative framework retains the balance between safety and innovation whilst offering the necessary consistency for manufacturers and users alike.

To this end, Europump, along with seventeen other Trade Associations – the co-signatories – have recently produced and issued a joint statement detailing their collective position in relation to five key areas. The full statement can be reviewed via this PDF download on the Europump website – http://bit.ly/EuroMD – and has been issued to the European Commission, the EP Rapporteur and Shadow Rapporteurs, EP IMCO coordinators and several Council Attachés.

In summary, the parties welcome the alignment with the New Legislative Framework (NLF) and its coherence with other legislation. But they reject the introduction of mandatory third-party conformity assessment for some machines and warn against undermining the consensus-based standardisation approach. They also stress the importance of respecting the NLF principle of technology-neutral legislation and request a clear transition period.