Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-04-23-Speech-4-495"
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"en.20090423.70.4-495"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, this evening we are coming to the end of the first phase of the work of examining the Commission proposal on the conditions for the marketing of construction products.
The second point concerns the simplified procedures to make access to the CE label easier. We have, however, decided to reserve access to these procedures to manufacturers of construction products, not to importers. This approach, which is aimed at improving the supervision of the market, will enable us to prevent low quality products from being imported by dubious import companies.
The third major change is the introduction of a minimum level of harmonisation as regards the criteria for assessing construction products in Europe. This is to ensure that the CE label has the same meaning in whichever country the product is marketed in.
Where possible, we would in fact like the requirements applied to product assessment in Europe to be the same in all the Member States. To this end, we have also introduced the option of creating new assessment criteria that are not merely technical, but can also be used to measure performance on subjects of general interest, such as the environment, safety and health risks.
To the same end – and this will be my fourth point – we have helped to significantly enhance the user information provided by manufacturers in the declaration of performance. Manufacturers will, in particular, have to declare any harmful substances appearing henceforth on an annexed list, which also includes the substances mentioned in the REACH Directive.
Finally, and this is my last point, the members of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection have tried to introduce more transparency in relation to the certification conditions for construction products, more transparency in relation to the companies’ role in the certification process, and more transparency, too, in relation to the clarification of the conditions of access to the CE label, clearly distinguishing the access routes for products covered by a harmonised standard from the route reserved for products that are not and that are often referred to as innovative products.
This work is in fact coming to an end, but it has not reached the stage that we wanted. The difficulties faced in the Council as regards formulating a position meant that one could not be agreed, despite good cooperation from the French Presidency and the Czech Presidency.
Today, I regret this, although I am aware that the extra time allocated to us might allow us, at second reading, to achieve a much broader consensus and, above all, to have more meaningful discussions, where these positions for this sector will be voiced.
I wish, in this respect, to thank the Commission for its technical support, and I also wish to thank all of the shadow rapporteurs for their receptiveness and their willingness to engage in dialogue, which has enabled us gradually to arrive at the same positions and to reach agreement on major points of this issue.
Whilst it is true that we fully support the objectives of the reform, which are to improve the market’s operation, to give credibility to the CE label and to simplify the system, and that we share the unquestionable interest in having a common technical language, a broad majority of the members of the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection were anxious to air their doubts.
These doubts can be explained in the first place by our unanimous desire to avoid simplifying and relaxing procedures and thus curbing product control and declarations.
They also arise from the position of the Commission which, in our view, tends to be happy with a situation in which product assessment criteria are in part left up to the Member States, so that the real meaning of the CE label depends on the country in which the products are marketed, thus causing problems of credibility.
Our reservations are based finally on the fact that, at a time when we wish to take Europe down the road of a green economy, the text proposed to us deals neither with the energy performance of products nor with their partial harmfulness to users.
To answer these concerns, the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection has introduced a series of changes. I personally will mention five of them.
We propose, in the first place, to maintain the obligation for construction products placed on the market to have the CE label, in order to guarantee that everything sold in Europe has undergone the appropriate control procedures.
This choice must not contribute to creating extra burdens on the weakest companies, thus handicapping their activity. That is why we have defended maintaining simplified procedures for micro-enterprises and why we have introduced a measure exempting small-scale craftspeople from a compulsory CE label."@en1
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