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Please find here information of the European Commission - Internal Market, Industry, Entrepeneurship and SMEs

EU machinery legislation

One of the main legislations governing the harmonisation of essential health and safety requirements for machinery at EU level is the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC

The directive

• promotes the free movement of machinery within the single market

• guarantees a high level of protection for EU workers and citizens

As it is a 'new approach' directive, it promotes harmonisation through a combination of mandatory health and safety requirements and voluntary harmonised standards. The machinery directive only applies to products that are to be placed on the EU market for the first time.

The machinery directive 2006/42/EC was published on 9 June 2006 and became applicable on 29 December 2009. It was amended by Directive 2009/127/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 21 October 2009, with regard to machinery for pesticide application, and by Regulation (EU) No 167/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 5 February 2013 on the approval and market surveillance of agricultural and forestry vehicles, among others. Read the consolidated text of the directive.

Guidance documents

• Edition 2.2 (update of the 2nd edition) of the guide to application of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC (4 MB) was endorsed by the machinery committee and issued in October 2019

• Application guide: ergonomic health and safety requirements (3 MB)

This document provides guidance on the application of the essential health and safety requirements relating to ergonomics in section 1.1.6 of annex I to the machinery directive and the corresponding harmonised standards.

Relevant information

• Evaluation of Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC (2 MB) Press release

• Public consultation: Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC (September-December 2016)

• Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC: evaluation study (4 MB)

• Consolidated minutes of the machinery working group (4 MB) from 1997 onwards

• Machinery standardisation: European harmonised standards under Directive 2006/42/EC

• Contact points (358 kB)

Notified bodies

• Bodies notified under Directive 2006/42/EC: Machinery in the NANDO information system (new approach notified and designated organisations)

• European coordination of notified bodies - Technical secretariat of notified bodies for machinery

'Recommendation for use' (RfU) sheets

The following 'recommendation for use' sheets reflect the common position of the notified bodies in the machinery sector. They have been endorsed by the machinery working group. Their purpose is to assist notified bodies in their tasks of conformity assessment of machinery, mainly for the EC type-examination procedure, in accordance with the terms of the machinery directive. All stakeholders involved in the implementation of the directive should be aware of the existence of this information

• Horizontal RfU sheets are prefixed by 00 and apply to all types of machinery listed in annex IV of the machinery directive

  • Horizontal RfUs (April 2018) (1 MB)

• Vertical RfU sheets apply more specifically to a particular category of machinery listed in annex IV, e.g. sheets prefixed by 01 deal with woodworking machinery. They are issued by vertical group No 1 of the coordination of notified bodies

  • Vertical RfUs (November 2018) (6 MB)