Official Title
Directive 98/37/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to machinery.
Amendments to this Directive
Obligatory Since
The Machinery Directive is obligatory since 1 January 1995
Scope of the Machinery Directive
The Machinery Directive applies to machinery and safety components placed on the market separately.
Excluded From the Scope of the Directive
The following are excluded from the scope of this Directive:
machinery whose only power source is directly applied manual effort, unless it is a machine used for lifting or lowering loads;
-machinery for medical use used in direct contact with patients;
-special equipment for use in fairgrounds and/or amusement parks;
-steam boilers, tanks and pressure vessels;
-machinery specially designed or put into service for nuclear purposes which, in the event of failure, may result in an emission of radioactivity;
radioactive sources forming part of a machine;
-firearms
-storage tanks and pipelines for petrol, diesel fuel, inflammable liquids and dangerous substances;
-means of transport, i.e. vehicles and their trailers intended solely for transporting passengers by air or on road, rail or water networks, as well as means of transport in so far as such means are designed for transporting goods by air, on public road or ail networks or on water. Vehicles used in the mineral extraction industry shall not be excluded;
-seagoing vessels and mobile offshore units together with equipment on board such vessels or units;
-cableways, including funicular railways, for the public or private transportation of persons;
-agricultural and forestry tractors, as defined in Article 1 (1) of Council Directive 74/150/EEC of 4 March 1974 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States relating to the type-approval of wheeled agricultural or forestry tractors 1), as lasted amended by Directive 88/297/EEC 2),
machines specially designed and constructed for military or police purposes;
-lifts which permanently serve specific levels of buildings and constructions, having a car moving between guides which are rigid and inclined at a angle of more than 15 degrees to the horizontal and designed for the transport of:
-- persons;
-- persons and goods;
-- goods alone if the car is accessible, that is to say, a person may enter it without difficulty, and fitted with controls situated inside the car or within reach of a person inside;
-means of transport of persons using rack and pinion rail mounted vehicles;
-mine winding gear;
-theatre elevators;
-construction site hoists intended for lifting persons and goods
Requirements of the Machinery Directive
The requirements of the Machinery Directive are laid down in Annex I:
- Essential health and safety requirements;
- Additional essential health and safety requirements for certain categories of machinery (Agri-foodstuffs machinery, portable hand-held and/or hand-guided machinery, machinery for working wood and analogous materials);
- Essential health and safety requirements to offset the particular hazards due to the mobility of machinery;
- Essential health and safety requirements to offset the particular hazards due to a lifting operation;
- Essential health and safety requirements for machinery intended solely for underground work;
- Essential health and safety requirements to offset the particular hazards due to the lifting or moving of persons.
Main Objective
The main objective of the Machinery Directives is the protection of the health and safety of persons, and thus to prevent, as far as possible, the placing on the market and putting into service of unsafe or otherwise non-compliant products.
CE Marking
Conformity with the Machinery Directive is indicated with the CE Marking, which is a mandatory marking for products falling within the scope of this Directive. CE stands for Conformité Européenne, French for European conformity.
Without the CE Marking, and without complying with the provisions of the Directive, the product may not be placed on the market or put into service in the European countries that form the European Economic Area (the EEA consists of the fifteen member states of the EU and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.) However, if the product meets the provisions of the applicable European Directives these countries may not prohibit, restrict or impede the placing on the market or putting into service of the product.
Thus, the CE Marking can be regarded as a product's trade passport for Europe. | 
