Effective market surveillance

In a joint press release, the major European machinery manufacturers' associations, including Euromap (Europe's Association for plastics and rubber machinery manufacturers), welcomed the European Union's recognition of the importance of effective market surveillance with the aim of supporting the European machinery industry. Since the machinery sector represents one of the most important areas for the labour market in the European Union with significant contributions to the trade balance of member countries, protecting the competitiveness of this industry is of paramount importance.
Cece (Committee of European Construction Equipment), Cecimo (European Association of the Machine Tool Industries), Cema (European Association of the Agricultural Machinery Industry), FEM (European Federation of Materials Handling) and Euromap made known that in the past years, the European machinery industry has alerted the decision-making bodies of Europe about the negative impact that ineffective market surveillance might have on the sector and the European economy as a whole. The growth of non-compliant machinery generates risks for safety and the environment, creates unfair competition and interferes with the competitiveness of European companies, posing a threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Therefore, the industry has undertaken a proactive approach in order to focus on the issue and make the competent authorities aware of it, providing, in particular, technical assistance through the "Market Surveillance Industry Support Platform" launched on the Internet in 2011.
The industry associations report a clear link between market surveillance and competitiveness, innovation, growth and jobs. Therefore, they hope that in addition to usual aspects regarding product safety, the objectives of industrial policy and competitiveness be taken into consideration and introduced into new legislation. In particular, they ask the Directorate General Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission to step in to head this project and propose ambitious initiatives. The mere incorporation of the 2001/95 directive on general product safety and the 765/2008 regulation in a single document would in fact bring no real benefit to the industry. On the contrary, there is a recently recognized need to ensure fair competition between all market operators: the European Commission and, therefore, the Parliament and member countries must ensure that only machines complying with European regulations are delivered in Europe.