Machinery

NORMAPME follows the revision of the standards resulting from the adoption of the new Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. Its provisions become applicable on 29th December 2009. Until that date, the provisions of the current Machinery Directive 98/37/EC continue to apply.

For the time being NORMAPME has been focusing mainly on the standards for machinery in the food sector, but there are also some other standardisation areas in the machinery sector that could pose some difficulties for SMEs.

 

GARDEN EQUIPMENT

Two sectorial French SME associations, FNAR (Fédération Nationale des Artisans et Petites Entreprises en milieu rural) and SMJ (Union Nationale des Spécialistes en matériels de parcs et jardins) have requested that action should be undertaken at European level for appropriate training to be given to purchasers of machinery for parks and gardens sold in kit.

This would avoid the responsibility of the seller to be directly involved in case of accidents happening at a later state to untrained users.

Our members would like distributors to be required to assemble such machinery in the shop and proceed to a handover to their customers.

NORMAPME believes that one way to provide the necessary guidance would be to include a paragraph in the Guide to the new Machinery Directive and has submitted amendments to the guide to the European Commission.