On 22 September 2016 the European Commission launched a public consultation on the evaluation of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. This runs for 12 weeks until 16 December 2016 and takes the form of an online questionnaire that is available in six official languages of the European Union: English, German, Spanish, French, Italian and Polish.
After some introductory questions such as Are you aware that some products are labelled with a "CE marking"? there are questions that are rather more probing - such as How effective do you believe authorities are in relation to...Identifying unsafe machinery and removing it from the market?. There is also a large table so respondents can give their views on what effect the Machinery Directive has had over the last ten years on, for example, machinery safety, innovation, profitability for machine builders and international competitiveness. Space is provided so respondents can provide additional information or examples. For those who have a good knowledge of machinery safety issues, there is an opportunity to answer extra questions that go into more detail. If required, the questionnaire can be saved as a draft on the user's computer so the form does not have to be completed in one session.
Depending on the quantity and quality of the responses received, this could be a very useful consultation exercise that could help steer future development of the Machinery Directive.
Follow the link for more information about the Public consultation on the evaluation of the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC and to access the questionnaire.