Amendments on the draft European Parliament’s Report on the Radio Equipment Directive: Regulate only where this is necessary.
Published: 3 September 2013
Policies & Issues: Internal Market - Product Safety Legislation
Orgalime welcomes the amendments tabled by the Members of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee of the European Parliament on the Commission’s proposal for a revised Radio Equipment Directive (RED).
These amendments go along the lines of Ms Weiler’s draft Report and improve further the Commission’s proposal. In particular, we acknowledge the Parliament’s consensus against any register (am. 6, 27, 81) and superfluous administrative obligations.
We urge the European Council to follow the Parliament’s choice to preserve the scope’s clarification in relation with other directives (am. 15 and 99). Amendment 99’s formulation, which is similar to the one in Machinery Directive (2006/42, Art. 3), enables manufacturers to decide with certainty which conformity assessment procedure to apply and, where relevant, which notified body to address.
Furthermore, we consider it crucial that the Council and Parliament should keep “communication” as the discriminatory criterion for the definition of “radio equipment” (amendments 1, 2, 16, 24, 25, 26, 88 and 96). Thereby, equipment using electromagnetic fields for purposes other than communication would stay out of the Directive’s scope and continue to be successfully regulated by Electromagnetic Compatibility Directive (EMCD) and Low Voltage Directive (LVD).
Moreover, we urge the European Parliament and Council to endorse the amendments that:
- exclude broadcast receivers from the Directive’s scope (amendments 118, 120) for the reasons explained hereafter
- remove unnecessary administrative burden for placing products on the market and efficiently use new technologies (amendments 37, 42, 93, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108, 109, 111, 112, 113, 115, 121, 123)
- keep the alignment of the Directive both with Decision 768/2008/EC and the latest developments in the “NLF Alignment Package” and Regulation EU 1025/2012 on European Standardisation (amendments 3, 8, 9, 10, 11, 14, 19, 20, 21, 22, 30, 31, 32, 36, 40, 41, 44, 48, 52, 53, 55, 56, 57, 62, 66, 67, 68, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75, 77, 78, 85).
For the same reasons we call on the Parliament to vote against amendments 33, 35, 38, 39, 45, 94, 101, 110, 117 and 122.