EU Legislation and the EN Eurocodes

Economic and political integration between the member states of the European Union means that these countries have to take joint decisions on many matters. So they have developed common policies in a very wide range of fields - from agriculture to culture, from consumer affairs to competition, from the environment and energy to transport and trade.

It took some time for the Member States to remove all the barriers to trade between them and to turn their common market into a genuine single market in which goods, services, people and capital could move around freely. The Single Market was formally completed at the end of 1992.

On 7 May 1985, the Council adopted a Resolution on a New Approach to technical harmonisation and standards, providing a new framework for the harmonisation of national regulations for industrial products.

The New Approach was devised to facilitate the achievement of the Internal Market and to develop flexible and technology-neutral legislation by moving from detailed product specific technical requirements to defining the essential requirements for types of products, thus promoting innovation and competitiveness.

This was complemented in 1989 by the Council Resolution on a "Global Approach" to conformity assessment, followed by two other Council Decisions setting out more detailed specifications on testing and certification procedures and providing guidelines for the use of the CE Marking, which are intended to be used in the harmonisation directives.

New Approach and the Global Approach […]