German authorities submitted a formal objection to the European Commission, against the safety standard on front loaders, EN 12525, claiming that it fails to fulfil the Machinery Directive. A formal objection is a procedure allowing a Member State to dispute the validity of a standard. To do that, the objecting authority needs to provide a rationale and data to explain in which way the standard fails to fulfil a Regulation (in this case, the Machinery Directive).

The issue raised by the German authorities is related to the fall of a load from the loader onto the tractor cab: they consider that the standard does not provide any design requirement to avoid or mitigate the risk, limiting the provisions to some organisational statements on the tractor side.

The request from the German authorities is thus to review EN 12525, in order to impose a protection against the fall-over (FOPS), in compliance with OECD code 10 “Official testing of falling object protective structures on agricultural and forestry tractors” on tractors intended to be fitted with a front loader.

CEMA considers that this formal objection procedure is not necessary for several reasons:

  • There has already been a discussion on the same item at standardisation level (last meeting of CEN/TC 144 “Tractors and machinery for forestry and agriculture”, held in December 2021): a revision of the standard was already mentioned in that instance, and Italy has been assigned the responsibility to prepare a draft. This proposal should be available very soon.
  • The proposal submitted by the German authorities is by itself an organisational measure, as it targets the tractor on which the front loader is fitted.
  • The request does not show whether it is linked to accidents reported; one potential issue may be linked to the fact that the implement mounted on the tractor was not relevant for the task desired.

This position was shared and validated by the members of CEN/TC 144.

This subject will be discussed on 12 October 2022 during the next meeting of the Machinery Expert Group of the Commission. The outcome of the discussions will allow to have a better idea of the actions to come with this standard; in particular, whether the compliance with this standard still give presumption of conformity to the Machinery Directive.