After the period of coexistence, on 1 September 2012 for fire dampers, there are several important impacts for national regulations and product marking:
- Conflicting national standards must be withdrawn by Member States. The CE marking remains the only valid product marking that provides product performance information on the criteria defined in the product standard. Nevertheless, these essential criteria are not always considered to be sufficient by the Member States. The product must consequently also continue to fulfil additional national legislation where such legislation exists.
- The common technical language defined in harmonised European standards (hEN) must be applied by the authorities of Member States when specifying requirements for fire dampers. The “EI..S” classifications must for instance be imported in national regulations and replace previous classification conventions (such as RF, CF, PF,…).
- The product standard does not aim to harmonise national regulations: Member States and public and private sector procurers are free to set their own requirements on the performance of works and therefore products. What the standard harmonises are the methods of test, the methods of declaration of product performance values, and the method of conformity assessment. Choice of required values for the chosen intended uses is left to the regulators in each Member State.
In conclusion, based on the product performance stated in the CE marking, all players in the market will be able to judge whether the product is suitable for a particular intended use in the country in which it is sold, according to the regulations which apply there.
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