The New Approach: Sixteen Years On

By Gareth Price, Senior Engineer, BEAB

It is now more than sixteen years since the set of legal, technical and administrative documents comprising the European Union’s guide to the ‘New Approach’ was first put together. The result of a great deal of consultation, deliberation and discussion over several years, this was and is a concerted effort to regularise and harmonise the procedures throughout the Community for assessing and accepting the quality and safety for all goods bought, sold and exchanged within the ‘Internal Market’. 

Now, the European Commission has decided to review the effectiveness of the New Approach and has published a Consultation Document (website address:

http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/consultations/new_approach_rev/index.htm) to address, and where possible rectify, perceived shortcomings with the approach as it stands. Closely associated with the text of this document is a comprehensive questionnaire, enabling input from all bodies and individuals concerned in whatever way with the implementation, application and future development of the New Approach.

In reading the document, it is important to always bear in mind that the New Approach is primarily concerned with the import and free movement of goods throughout the member countries of the EC - the directives, harmonised standards and accredited bodies with which we are familiar are secondary to this. In other words, the component parts of the New Approach package are a means to an end rather than an end in themselves. That being said however, the effectiveness of the means must ultimately be judged by the achievement of the objectives - and it is this consideration that is the driving force behind this new consultative document. The questionnaire, in particular, gives the clue as to where the perceived weaknesses lie. It is apparent there are three key areas to be addressed:

1.  The status of the CE mark, especially in relation to the other national marks.

2.  Surveillance of manufactured, distributed and imported goods in the European market place.

3.  Conformity assessment procedures (the modules).

Status of the CE Mark

With regard to the CE mark, the document refers to an apparent “lack of confidence” in the marketplace, a view that some would attribute to the almost complete lack of post-manufacturing surveillance (point 2).

The consultation document also addresses the issue of how the continuation of the well-established voluntary quality marks - such as the BEAB mark in the UK and, elsewhere in Europe, the VDE, IMQ and SEMKO marks (etc) - affect the status of the CE Mark. This said, it stops short of actually implying that the CE mark should eventually replace these marks completely, conceding that there is a need for such “added-value” marks, which it potentially sees as being met by Europe-wide marks such as the Keymark.

Surveillance

In many ways, the ‘Achilles Heel’ of the New Approach is the inadequacy of existing market surveillance procedures. Generally speaking, there is an awareness of a plethora of CE-marked goods already in the market place, for which there is no obvious indication that they have been the subject of a meaningful conformity assessment process.

The key difficulty is that the task of monitoring the vast numbers of products entering and circulating within the ‘Internal Market’, is committed to relatively small, often poorly resourced, government agencies. Primarily it is the Customs Officers who have responsibility for these controls but, in practice, it is agencies such as the UK’s Trading Standards department who are concerned with safety checks (of electrical consumer products, for example).  Public safety - particularly in the area of electric shock hazard – must always be of paramount importance and it is inevitable that these bodies and individuals concerned with enforcement will dedicate less of their limited resource to the routine monitoring of technical files that support the manufacturers declaration of conformity to an appropriate Directive.

In addition, inconsistencies between member States, in the implementation of surveillance controls, is clearly a key concern in the document. With the relaxation of trade controls between States, there is the danger that importers will exploit an ‘easy’ point of entry as a gateway into the entire European Community. 

Apart from the obvious solution of increasing the resourcing of surveillance bodies generally, the document sees the increased “exchange of information” throughout Europe as a key to tightening up the enforcement of controls in the future, and (hopefully) raising the status of the CE mark as a result.

The Modules

In order to establish the conformity of a product, or group of products, the New Approach incorporates a scheme whereby a manufacturer is required to demonstrate conformity by means of a combination of self-applied and/or third party applied assessment procedures - both during product evolution and as part of the production process. Unfortunately the resultant ‘modules’ (as they are called) have proved to be unduly complicated and burdensome and, especially where Notified Body intervention is called for, they are often unworkable simply because of the sheer number of manufacturers and products to be assessed.

It is clear that one prime objective of the consultation is to achieve a practical rationalisation and simplification of the New Approach process, without compromising assessment standards – and several questions in the document invite input on this particular issue.

The Role of the National Certification Body

The document recognises the expertise inherent within the European network of National Certification Bodies, the contribution they make to the conformity assessment process and the added value they provide.  It is certainly true that the increased level of exchange and communication of information between member States (that the document sees as the key to the future development of the New Approach), already exists within this Europe-wide structure - through the CCA scheme in particular.

The solution would appear to be, to better integrate the activities of the National Certification Bodies - and the clearly visible level of assurance to consumers they provide - within the New Approach processes.

Should you need further information or advice, please contact BEAB on 01483 455466, Email: info@beab.co.uk or visit http://www.beab.co.uk/