CONSTRUCTION FIXINGS
Understanding the CPR
Barbara Sorgato, Secretary to the European Consortium of Anchor Producers
Through her role with ECAP, Barbara Sorgato has been a long time campaigner to ensure the voice of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), particularly in the field of fixing products, is clearly heard whenever standards and regulations are developed. Here she offers her distinctive and incisive perspective on the Construction Products Regulation, which is on the verge of coming into full force.
German driving license and a German boyfriend. The first two were not accepted in Italy, and so it was also for the five-year German Masters in mechanical engineering of my boyfriend. Today things are easier for EU citizens: we have the Euro,
S
Eurocodes, European driving licenses and European mutual recognition of higher education diplomas in Europe. But the European internal market is not yet free of barriers, especially for European SMEs. Straight after the end of the past millennium, in 2001, a
group of European SMEs, all competitors and all coming from different member states, reached beyond their national identity and created ECAP, the European Consortium of Anchor Producers. They needed to do this, as they recognised the only way, as SMEs, to have a real voice in Brussels and in the normative sector, was to create their own European identity. As ECAP secretary general, I learned to understand the needs and the efforts of European SMEs, their limits and their fight for a free internal market, against the blindness of politicians, the nationalisms of member states, and against the excessive power of multinationals.
“ To read the CPR is crucially important, both to understand how to grasp this opportunity towards a free European internal market, and to confute misleading information of the CPR…”
62 Fastener + Fixing Magazine • Issue 81 May 2013
traight after the fall of the Berlin wall, I moved to Berlin and worked as a civil architect, earning Deutsche Mark. Six years later I came back to Milan with my experience on German buildings design and job sites, with a
Soon things could become easier for EU SMEs. The
Construction Products Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 (CPR), coming into force on 1st
July 2013, is the first truly Europe
wide law for construction products. This Regulation is going to overrule the national laws of the single member states, with the aim to remove national barriers to trade in the name of a free internal market: an outrage for European sovereignty, a hope for European SMEs. If you are not a lawyer, I agree that a reading of the CPR
is probably not a lot of fun. I also agree that the CPR is not a perfect document. But I strongly recommend you to the challenge of really familiarising yourself with this document, particularly if you are an end user or a SME. You can download in all EU official languages the Construction Product Regulation from the following website of the European Commission:
http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/construction
To read the CPR is crucially important, both to understand
how to grasp this opportunity towards a free European internal market, and to confute misleading information of the CPR – spread perhaps simply through lack of understanding or in some cases with more deliberate intent to distort market understanding in favour of vested interests. Here is a list of some of the key areas of confusion and my
related comments, based on the CPR. If you have a copy of the CPR in your hands or on your PC, you can go straight to the articles and sections mentioned in parenthesis:
CPR says all construction products must bear the CE marking No! CE marking is mandatory only for those construction
products for which the manufacturer has drawn up a declaration of performance (DoP). (Art. 8.2)
CPR says all construction products must have a DoP No! A DoP is compulsory in just two cases: when a product
is covered by a harmonised standard (a hEN) or when a product conforms to a European Technical Assessment/Approval (ETA) that has been issued for it. That means: no standard, no DoP and no CE. No ETA, no DoP and no CE. (Art. 4.1)
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