2006/42/EC - Machinery Directive aims at the free market circulation on machinery and at the protection of workers and consumers using such machinery. It defines essential health and safety requirements of general application, supplemented by a number of more specific requirements for certain categories of machinery.
Where, for machinery, the hazards referred to in Annex I of the Directive are wholly or partly covered more specifically by other Community Directives, this Directive shall not apply, or shall cease to apply, to that machinery in respect of such hazards from the date of implementation of those other directives.
Remark: Directive 2006/42/EC has been repealed by Regulation (EU) 2023/1230 on machinery. This Regulation applies from 20 January 2027.
Definitions
This Directive applies to machinery, interchangeable equipment, safety components, lifting accessories, chains, ropes and webbing, removable mechanical transmission devices and partly completed machinery as defined in Art. 2 of the Directive.
Contents
Member States shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that partly completed machinery can be placed on the market only if it satisfies the relevant provisions of this Directive.
Essential health and safety requirements relating to the the design and construction of machinery are defined in Annex I of the Directive.
Member States should ensure their capacity to carry out effective market surveillance, taking account of guidelines developed by the Commission, in order to achieve the proper and uniform application of this Directive.
Member States shall institute or appoint the competent authorities to monitor the conformity of machinery and partly completed machinery and define tasks, organisation and powers.
The manufacturers should retain full responsibility for certifying the conformity of their machinery to the provisions of this Directive. The CE marking should be fully recognised as being the only marking which guarantees that machinery conforms to the requirements of this Directive.
The manufacturer or his authorised representative should also ensure that a risk assessment is carried out for the machinery which he wishes to place on the market. For this purpose, he should determine which are the essential health and safety requirements applicable to his machinery and in respect of which he must take measures.
The machinery must then be designed and constructed taking into account the results of the risk assessment.
Machinery must be designed and constructed so that it is fitted for its function, and can be operated, adjusted and maintained without putting persons at risk when these operations are carried out under the conditions foreseen but also taking into account any reasonably foreseeable misuse thereof.
The manufacturer or his authorised representative should prepare a technical construction file which must be available on request and which demonstrates conformity of the machinery with the essential health and safety requirements.
Member States should provide for penalties applicable to infringements of the provisions of this Directive. Those penalties should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.
The Directive repeals Directive 98/37 EC on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to machinery as of 29th December 2009.
Annexes
Annex I - Essential health and safety requirements relating to the the design and construction of machinery
Annex II - Declarations
Annex III - CE marking
Annex IV - Categories of machinery to which one of the procedures referred to in Article 12(3) and (4) must be applied
Annex V - Indicative list of the safety components referred to in Article 2(c)
Annex VI - Assembly instructions for partly completed machinery
Annex VII - Technical files / technical documentation
Annex VIII - Assembly instructions for partly completed machinery
Annex IX - EC type-examination
Annex X - Full quality assurance
Annex XI - Minimum criteria to be taken into account by Member States for the notification of bodies
Annex XII - Correlation table with Directive 98/37/EC
