The Construction Products Regulation (CPR) 305/2011 regulates the placing on the EU market of construction products. Amongst other things, CE Marking is applied to products in the framework of harmonised standards and a Declaration of Performance is required to accompany the product. The CPR will be revised in 2021. This is because since its entry into force, a number of significant problems have arisen, over its interpretation. There is too much ambiguity. For example, clauses that were intended to help SMEs especially, are widely misunderstood and therefore rarely used. Furthermore, a number of cases in the European Court of Justice have added to the confusion and have had the effect of, through this case law, re-interpreting the Regulation in a way that is not accepted by stakeholders. One example is the argument over the so-called “exhaustiveness of standards”, now being used by the European Commission as a pillar of any future revised CPR, but disputed by stakeholders, which argue that, as technology constantly innovates and as standards need revising from time to time and furthermore as standards contain both regulatory and non-regulatory specifications, they can never be exhaustive.
FIEC is dealing with this issue because the CE Mark in the context of the CPR is widely misunderstood and contractors need more information than is provided in the accompanying Declaration of Performance. Over the years, FIEC has been lobbying for improvements to protect contractors from the legal uncertainty that exists. Latest information indicates that the timescale for revision is too long to solve the problems that contractors are experiencing with the existing CPR and therefore, FIEC is working with other relevant federations on a proposal for interim technical solutions.
The Joint Discussion Paper on the Revision of CPR published in September 2020 is available below.
-
2020-09-07 Discussion Paper on the Revision of the CPR