The free movement of goods is one of four 'freedoms' created by the EC Treaty. The others concern people, services and capital.
Goods include a wide spectrum of products covering energy, industrial products, agricultural products and foodstuffs and must be free to move around the EU, being bought and sold, without being subjected to expensive and time-consuming approval procedures, unnecessary testing or other unjustified restrictions.
The free movement of goods, a central pillar of the single market, is a major driver for competitiveness and economic growth within the EU. Community technical legislation covering 'goods' or 'products' is secondary legislation and it is its enactment that has ensured the free circulation of products.
Secondary legislation includes both legally-binding and non-binding instruments. An EU-binding legal instrument can take the form of a regulation, directive or a decision.
Regulations are used when there is need for consistency and uniformity of application between member states. They are applicable to everybody and are also directly applicable, meaning they take immediate effect across all member states without the need for national governments to adopt them into national legislation. Much of EU law takes the form of directives, which are addressed to member states, requiring them to align their national legislation with the general rules and objectives set out in the directive.
Although they are capable of having direct effect, parties have generally tended to enforce them only once member states have passed national legislation implementing the directive. This process may take time - national administrations are usually given 18 or 24 months to transpose the prescribed obligations within the framework of their internal legal order.
The resulting national laws may vary, because member states are provided with a choice as to the form and method adopted to realise these objectives. Therefore, directives are not meant to unify but to harmonise the legislation of member states.
Member states are, however, obliged to notify the Commission and other member states of the measures introduced, and a three-month standstill period applied for reactions by both Commission and member states.
Failure to notify may have serious consequences - it renders the technical regulation concerned inapplicable, so that it is unenforceable against individuals - national courts must decline to apply a non-notified technical regulation. The Malta Standards Authority (MSA) has been designated as the Notification Authority under 98/34/EC for Malta.
The range of products found on the market is enormous and a 'product' shall mean a substance, preparation or good produced through a manufacturing process other than food, feed, living plants and animals, products of human origin and products of plants and animals relating directly to their future reproduction.
We refer to this category of products as engineering products - those products which undergo a number of processes, ranging from design to manufacturing and final testing.
It is very difficult to adopt community legislation for every product that exists or that may be developed; there is a need for a broad-based, legislative framework of a horizontal nature to deal with such products. Horizontal legislation covers common characteristics in a range of products while vertical or sectoral legislation is specific to a particular product.
The most common type of vertical European legislation covering engineering products is known as the 'new approach' directive.
European harmonised standards provide the detailed technical information enabling manufacturers to meet essential requirements. Products meeting the essential requirements are to display the CE marking, which means they can be sold anywhere in the community/EEA.
Where a 'new approach' directive requires products and/or systems to be independently tested, certified or inspected, this must be done by a notified body. In Malta's case, it's the MSA. The primary role of a notified body is to provide services for conformity assessment on the conditions set out in the New Approach Directives in support of CE marking.
The main features of the directives are:
• Legislation is limited to goal-setting, essential health and safety requirements;
• Standards bodies on mandates received from the European Commission draw up technical specifications - European standards - needed to ensure conformity with these requirements;
• The standards are voluntary;
• Products made to European standards enjoy a presumption of conformity with the essential requirements of the directives.
The General Product Safety Directive is intended to ensure a high level of product safety throughout the EU for consumer products that are not covered by specific sector legislation (such as toys, chemicals, cosmetics, machinery).
It is an umbrella directive incorporating products that are not covered by vertical requirements and is currently being reviewed.
The New Legislative Framework package, which came into force last Friday, aims to facilitate the marketing of products within the internal market.
One of the implementing measures is that of market surveillance. The package introduces better rules on market surveillance to protect consumers and professionals from unsafe products, including imports from third countries. This mostly applies to procedures for products that can be a hazard to health or the environment. In such a case, the product will be withdrawn from the market.
For more information, visit www.msa.org.mt.
Mr Farrugia is chairman of the Malta Standards Authority.