On 23rd March, the Machinery Expert Group met for the first time since the agreement between the European Parliament and the European Council on the Machinery Regulation.

The Commission informed participants that the official publication of the Machinery Regulation in the Official Journal of the European Union is planned for beginning of July 2023. This means the new rules will be applicable as of for early 2027, except for the content of Annex I, dealing with the equipment to be submitted to a special conformity assessment, and in case where the safety of an equipment is questioned.

There will be no transitional provision to move from Directive 2006/42/EC (“Machinery Directive”) to the new Machinery Regulation: the Directive will legally apply until one specific day, and the Regulation will apply starting from the day after. In particular, the provision stating that the manufacturer can provide instructions and the Declaration of Conformity under digital format cannot be anticipated.

When it comes the update of harmonised standards, which give the technical requirements to comply with the Regulation, the intent of the Commission is to limit as much as possible the work to be done at standardisation level.

There was a strong support from stakeholders and Member States to the official request from EGMF to work on the application guide for the Machinery Regulation. Although no timeline was set, the starting point will be the existing guide for Directive 2006/42/EC, where only the parts which were updated or added will be covered. This work is important and should be done before harmonised standards are revised or amended, to avoid any diverging requirements.

The Commission also provided additional information on the road circulation requirements for mobile machinery: the proposal was released on 30 March 2023. The text is available at Proposal for a regulation on the approval and market surveillance of non-road mobile machinery circulating on public roads (europa.eu)