Strengthening the Construction Products Regulation for greater efficiency and sustainability

The Construction Products Regulation (CPR)[1] may have deficiencies that need to be addressed yet it needs to be preserved and reinforced. With its preceding directive, it laid down the foundations of the single market in construction products.

It is Glass for Europe’s belief that the time has come to complete the single market, improve its functioning, and adapt it to be an effective driver of sustainability in the building sector.

Based on the building glass industry’s experience and involvement in the development of new and revised standards for ‘glass in buildings’, Glass for Europe provided comprehensive input to the European Commission’s consultation in August 2020[2]. This position paper aims to contextualize the flat glass industry’s input and to identify four success factors for a future revision of the CPR:

1. Reinforce the CPR’s single market principles and stay away from a renationalisation of standardisation procedures.

2. Maintain the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) as the hub for the development of harmonised standards and improve guidance.

3. Simplify burdensome procedures with limited added value.

4. Utilize the CPR as a driver of sustainability in the construction sector.

1. Reinforce the CPR’s single market principles and stay away from a renationalisation of standardisation procedures

Uniform rules for the CE marking of construction products are essential to safeguard a properly functioning single market. Experience and evidence in other industrial sectors have shown how mutual recognition schemes generate useless complexity and additional costs while national so-called ‘voluntary’ schemes are sometimes used as barriers to trade within the single market. Glass for Europe is therefore strongly opposed to a repeal of the Construction Products Regulation and its replacement by a Mutual Recognition Scheme, presented as option E in the consultation document.

In the same spirit, option C of a ‘refocused CPR’ is opposed by Glass for Europe. This option would essentially weaken the single market by way of reduced harmonisation coupled with Member States’ additional requirements that would fragment markets in Europe.

More generally, Glass for Europe is concerned by several suggestions made throughout all options that would directly or indirectly weaken the credibility of CE marking and the standardisation process. For instance, Glass for Europe opposes alternative routes to obtain the mark be they national or based on ‘manufacturers’ claims’, preliminary CE-marking by manufacturers while a standard is not yet published, etc. Exemptions from CE marking, for example for SMEs, need to remain strictly limited and justified.

On the contrary, Glass for Europe is of the view that the uniform route to CE mark products by way of a declaration of performances (DoP) according to European harmonised standards (hENs) needs strengthening. It is however essential that market surveillance is seriously ramped up to check effective product compliance with the standards, test methods and tolerances. Too often, controls are limited to mere formal / paperwork compliance.

2. Maintain the European Committee for Standardisation as the hub for the development of harmonised standards and improve guidance

Glass for Europe believes that the current architecture for standards development is fit for purpose. Because of the complexity and technicality of the myriad of construction products, the involvement of experts by way of technical committees of the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) is essential and needs to be nurtured. At the same time, hENs bear regulatory value. Today’s system does provide for the necessary support as well as scrutiny and input by national mirror groups thanks to enquiry and formal votes. The legal support and backing are provided by HAS consultants and the European Commission services which are ultimately in charge of accepting or not the citation of new or revised hENs. Glass for Europe is therefore largely opposed to Option D2 of the consultation document.

Complexities in the system and overly lengthy procedures have been observed, including for the development of ‘glass in buildings’ standards. From our industry’s experience, three main difficulties have been encountered:

1. A lack of guidance from European authorities on the content, vocabulary and structure expected from new and revised standards,

2. The lengthy post-publication but prior-citation regulatory check by the European Commission

3. Subsequent burdensome procedures.

These deficiencies can be overcome by way of improved guidance from the European Commission, which would render the work of CEN TC experts more efficient. In this regard, Glass for Europe calls on the European Commission to endorse a common template, such as that proposed by the JIS action 5. It should also be ensured that the CEN technical committees are timely notified of any changes or updates This would improve the quality of proposed hENs and make the European Commission’s legal check easier for a faster citation of standards.

Glass for Europe is also of the view that the HAS consultants’ and the European Commission’s legal checks prior to citation in the official journal should take place ahead of publication of the standard by CEN to avoid confusion on the market when corrections need to take place.

The current system can also be improved on other items and, for instance, Glass for Europe calls on EU authorities to speed up the establishment of delegated acts for new classes, thresholds, and new characteristics related to existing Basic Requirements for Construction Works (BRCWs), particularly BRCWs 3 and 7. In the meantime, the procedure of answers to the Mandate should remain valid and continue to apply so that standards can be updated.