Orgalime comments on the European Commission Proposal for a Directive on the making available on the market of radio equipment (RED) European Commission Proposal COM (2012) 584 final 2012/0238 (COD)

While Orgalime welcomes the proposal for the revision of the Radio and Telecommunication Terminal Directive (R&TTED, 1999/5), we have some areas of concern, and especially with: 

• Application of the “Lex Specialis” principle: the Directive should not apply where, for radio equipment, the essential requirements referred to in Article 3 are wholly or partly covered more specifically by other EU directives (not only the EMCD and LVD, but also ATEX, and directives on machinery or medical devices); 
• Scope: we regret that the definition of radio equipment no longer refers to its capability of communication, thereby broadening the scope of the new Directive to equipment that was not intended to be under the scope: this brings legal uncertainty for manufacturers of such equipment (micro-wave ovens, industrial sensors…). We suggest re-introducing the communication criteria into the definition. 
• Scope exclusions: in any case, we recommend to exclude from the scope of this revised Directive under annex II.2 the following product groups: inductive heating appliances, inductive power transfer appliances, medical devices such as high frequency surgery equipment, and industrial sensing devices that are based on physical principles of electromagnetic fields without communication ability; 
• Registration system: we call for the deletion of this requirement, because such a system is in contradiction with the New Legislative Framework (e.g. LVD, EMCD), would raise confidentiality questions, cause disproportionate costs to legitimate manufacturers and undermine the global competitiveness position of the EU. 
• Declaration of conformity (DoC): we suggest that manufacturers use the type, batch, serial number or any other element allowing for the identification of the products covered by the DoC instead of a “unique identification number for each product covered”. 
• Translation of the DoC: Orgalime calls for the deletion of Article 21.5, as it requires manufacturers to translate the technical documentation necessary to demonstrate the conformity into the language of all Member States where the product is circulated, thereby upsetting the current practice and adding costs which impact especially SMEs.