Recommendations for the trilogue negotiations in the review process of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) with focus on the EAD/ETA route to CE marking

Recommendations for the trilogue negotiations in the review process of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR)

In this paper, CFE addresses some crucial points in the CPR draft related to the CE marking of products, which are not covered by hEN, based on EADs and ETAs.

Intended change of the publication sequence of ETA and EAD

According to the initial proposal of the European Commission and the amendments of the European Parliament and the Council WG, the issue of an ETA will be possible only after the citation of the respective EAD in the OJEU.
Although the CPR draft and amendments foresee some improvements of the EAD process, CFE expects that the unpredictability and long duration between the adoption and the citation of EADs will not change significantly. This estimation is based on experiences under the current CPR over more than10 years and takes into account the resource capacities at European Commission level for these tasks.

CFE is also concerned that in the phase between adoption and citation of EADs, which can take several years based on current experience, the confidentiality of the EAD content can no longer be guaranteed and that competitors of the initial manufacturer will use this period to develop similar products. As a result, such competitors may get their ETAs at the same time as the initial manufacturer and the competition advantage is irrelevant.
As consequence, the EAD/ETA route will become less attractive especially for innovative SMEs, which can lead to a new shift towards national approvals and a de-harmonisation of whole product families.
Such a shift could even be strengthened by the fact that EADs will no longer be considered as harmonised technical specifications and will not be part of the harmonised zone.