Machinery regulation: information on legislative timeline

As CECE started gearing up for the legislative procedure on the Regulation for Machinery Products, more detail and information have become clear on the process. Here is a recap of the main points.                               

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The Commission presented the legislative proposal for a regulation on machinery on 21st April, following the EU ordinary legislative procedure. This means that both the Parliament and the Council will have equal legislative power on it.

After the transmission of the proposal to the Parliament, it was announced that the official Committee responsible for the machinery products regulation would be the Internal Market Committee (IMCO).

The Rapporteur for this file has been nominated: MEP Ivan Štefanec of the European People’s Party (EPP). Mr Štefanec has been MEP for Slovakia since 2014 and also serves as President of SME Europe – the group of the EPP dedicated to promoting business-friendly legislation for SMEs. Among his political priorities, the reduction of red tape is key. MEP Štefanec is also a member of the EP Intergroup on industrial competitiveness – link – for which CECE ensures the secretariat.

MEP Adriana Maldonado Lopez has been appointed shadow rapporteur for the Socialists & Democrats (S&D) group. The rapporteurs of the other group have not been appointed yet.

An initial exchange of views in IMCO already took place in mid-May with the presentation of the proposal by the European Commission, but the political discussions will start when all the shadow rapporteurs will be appointed.

The Rapporteur’s draft text should be finalized by October 2021. This report will contain the amendments presented so far, with the deadline for further amendments in IMCO Committee foreseen for early November. Afterwards the IMCO Committee will proceed to negotiations to reach some compromise on the amendments. This phase will be key for all actors including business associations, like CECE. The official vote on the amendments by the IMCO Committee should take place in February 2022.

Following the IMCO vote, the so-called “trialogue negotiations” with the Council and the Commission will take place. A final agreement on this legislation is not expected before summer 2022.

CECE will closely follow the development of the discussions in the IMCO Committee and will engage with all actors with different degrees of responsibility on this file.