Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the "Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits (codified version)" (COM(2003) 252 final — 2003/0094 (COD))
Date: 2003-09-24
Institutions: European Economic and Social Committee
Subjects: approximation of laws, electrical equipment, harmonisation of standards, safety standard

C 10/6

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

14.1.2004

Opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee on the ‘Proposal for a Directive of the
European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States
relating to electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits (codified version)’

(COM(2003) 252 final — 2003/0094 (COD))

(2004/C 10/02)

On 26 May 2003 the Council decided to consult the European Economic and Social Committee, under
Article 308 of the Treaty establishing the European Community, on the above-mentioned proposal.

The Section for the Single Market, Production and Consumption, which was responsible for preparing
the Committee’s work on the subject, adopted its opinion on 3 September 2003. The rapporteur was
Mr Green.

At its 402nd plenary session (meeting of 24 September 2003), the European Economic and Social
Committee adopted the following opinion with 119 votes in favour, one against and three abstentions.

1. Background

On 1 April 1987 the Commission instructed its staff
1.1.
that all legislative acts should be codified after no more than
ten amendments or at even shorter intervals to ensure that the
Community rules are clear and readily understandable.

1.2.
Given that no changes of substance may be made to
the instruments affected by codification, an interinstitutional
agreement was made on 20 December 1994 between the
European Parliament, the Council and the Commission where-
by an accelerated procedure may be used for the fast-track
adoption of codified instruments.

2. The Commission proposal

2.1.
The purpose of the present proposal is to undertake a
codification of the low voltage directive 73/23/EEC. The new
directive will supersede the various acts incorporated in it (1).
The proposal fully preserves the content of the acts being
codified and effects only such formal amendments as are
required by the codification exercise itself.

The low voltage directive covers electrical equipment
2.2.
designed for use with a voltage rating of between 50 and
1 000 V for alternating current and between 75 and 1 500 V

for direct current. It therefore applies to a large proportion of
the electrical appliances used for both professional and private
purposes. It is the low voltage directive which sets out the
requirements for CE marking and an EC declaration of
conformity.

3. General comments

3.1.
In principle, the EESC endorses the Commission pro-
posal, which is intended to make Community legislation clear
and transparent.

4. Specific comments

Proposed amendment to the wording of the second

4.1.
paragraph of Article 5:

‘Standards shall be regarded as harmonised once they are
drawn up and adopted by a recognised standards body,
and published under national procedures. The standards
shall be kept up to date in the light of technological
progress and the developments in good engineering prac-
tice in safety matters.’

The present wording does not concern the bodies mentioned
in Article 11 of the draft directive. In actual fact the standards
are those drawn up by CENELEC (2).

(1) Annex V, Part A, of the draft directive.

(2) European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization.

Brussels, 24 September 2003.

The President

of the European Economic and Social Committee

Roger BRIESCH