The association was responding to the introduction of a new national approval for some construction products in Germany, including passive fire protection.
The current draft of the German Regulation (Verwaltungsvorschrift) does not permit the use of certain CE-marked construction products without an additional national document. Called Bauartgenehmigung (acc. to §16a, Musterbauordnung/MBO, 2016) this links usage in a building directly to the product via the applied European testing and classification standards.
By apparently declaring product-related requirements that already incorporate usage requirements as building-related requirements, the German authorities have created a variety of installation and job-site headaches, according to the EAPFP.
The association says that additional approvals, such as the requirement for construction products to declare all required performances for the use of such a product in the declaration of performance (DoP) or European technical assessment, are a barrier to trade. They therefore infringe the Construction Product Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, Article 8, para 4.
This states that “A Member State shall not prohibit or impede, within its territory or under its responsibility, the making available on the market or the use of construction products bearing the CE marking, when the declared performances correspond to the requirements for such use in that Member State.”
The EAPFP contends that the free movement of construction products is fundamental to the fortunes of the fire protective products industry and the construction sector as a whole.
“National barriers, potentially explainable and justifiable from historic perspectives, and related to short-term objectives, are detrimental in the long term to our market sector, and thus for the economies of European Member States,” says EAPFP president Joric Witlox.
“EAPFP supports the CE-mark as the only mark, that assesses the product characteristics, allowing access to the market.”
The association says its position on the issue is supported by the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which in a judgment on 16 October 2014, case C-100/13, also advised that Germany was impeding the free movement of construction products.
Download the Fire Safety in 2023 eBook, keeping you up to date with the biggest news and prosecution stories from around the industry. Chapters include important updates such as the Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022 and an overview of the new British Standard for the digital management of fire safety information.
Plus, we explore the growing risks of lithium-ion battery fires and hear from experts in disability evacuation and social housing.
