A Practical Guide to Understanding the Specific Requirements of CPR

A Practical Guide to Understanding the Specific Requirements of CPR

- REGULATION (EU) No 305/2011 OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL of 9 March 2011 laying down harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products and repealing Council Directive 89/106/EEC.

Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 lays down the conditions for the placing or making available on the market of construction products by establishing harmonised rules for declaring their performance in relation to their essential characteristics and for CE marking those products.

The old Construction Products Directive (CPD) was revised because it was not applied in a harmonised way throughout the EU (in some member states, for example, the CE marking was not compulsory). Whereas a Regulation applies directly without need for national transpositions, from which such discrepancies can arise. So this revision was deemed necessary to remove remaining technical barriers to trade, and also to align with the principles of the New Legislative Framework.

On 26 May 2008, the European Commission tabled the proposal for a new regulation and after years of discussion between the three institutions, the Regulation was finally adopted on 9 March 2011 and published in the Official Journal of the EU on 4 April 2011. The Regulation entered into force 20 days later, and becomes fully applicable from 1 July 2013. The purpose of this Orgalime guide is to explain the main changes and obligations for all economic operators arising from this Regulation, and to help Orgalime industries prepare to meet the new requirements, where necessary.

This guide reflects the best knowledge of industry experts across Europe and the state of the art at the time of writing. It represents our best understanding; a binding interpretation of Community legislation, however, remains the exclusive competence of the European Court of Justice.