Czech Republic takes over the Presidency of the Council of the EU
In the second half of 2022, the Czech Presidency of the Council of the EU (CZ PRES) chairs two subgroups of the EU Council Working Party on Technical Harmonisation (WG G7), where regulations falling within its direct competence are discussed.
Machinery
Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on machinery products
A proposal for a regulation to replace Directive 2006/42/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on machinery was published by the European Commission (EC) on 21 April 2021, together with a proposal for a regulation on artificial intelligence. The purpose of the proposal is mainly to create a legal framework for placing safe machinery products on the EU market, to cover new risks associated with new technologies, to guarantee legal certainty by clarifying the scope and definitions, and to clarify the issue of mandatory third-party conformity assessment for certain categories of machinery products. CZ PRES is the fourth Presidency to discuss the proposal. Under the French Presidency (FR PRES), agreement was reached at G7 level on the modifications to the text submitted by the EC. CZ PRES will initiate discussions with the European Parliament (EP) with a view to reaching a political agreement between the Council and the EP and concluding the discussion on the proposal.
Building products
The EC published the proposal on 30 March 2022 as part of the first Circular Economy Package to achieve a well-functioning single market for construction products and contribute to the green and digital transition objectives. In particular, the expected benefits of the new proposal are to strengthen the internal market, to improve standard-setting and harmonisation processes and to increase the sustainability of construction products, for example by promoting the use of used, recycled and remanufactured products and by introducing a mandatory climate impact assessment for products. FR PRES started the discussion of the proposal at the G7 level by presenting some aspects of the proposal. FR PRES will start discussing the individual articles grouped into thematic clusters with the intention of making as much progress as possible in the negotiations.
Furthermore, the representative of the ÚNMZ alternates the chairman Council Working Party on Competitiveness and Growth - Industry (WG G1) during the hearing Proposal for amending Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 on European Standardisation (Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 as regards decisions of the European Standardisation Organisations concerning European standards and European standardisation products), which is under the responsibility of the Office. The aim of the proposal is to ensure that in the case of standard-setting at the request of the EC, voting rights within the relevant European standardisation organisation can be exercised only and exclusively by representatives of the national standardisation organisations of the MS, EEA and candidate countries. To this end, the proposal amends Article 10 of Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 concerning requests for standardisation submitted to the ESOs. FR PRES has initiated the discussion of the proposal and has received a mandate to enter into trialogues with the EP, with the understanding that the Council does not propose any changes to the text submitted by the EC. Following the adoption of the EP position, FR PRES will enter into negotiations with the EP with a view to reaching a political agreement and concluding the negotiations.
More detailed information on the discussion of the above proposals can be obtained at radaeu@unmz.cz.