Simplifying the EMC Directive: Phase Two

By David Imeson

Compliance Europe Ltd. (Hants, UK)

Since May 1996, the European Commission has been embarked on an ambitious effort, known as Simpler Legislation for the Internal Market (SLIM), to streamline many of its directives. The EMC Directive 89/336 became the subject of this process in 1998. A SLIM team of 10 members, evenly divided between industry and government, met in May, July, and September to assess the directive and recommend changes. The team issued a report containing 20 recommendations in November. Although there had been considerable speculation regarding the extent of the revisions that would be recommended, the proposals have turned out to be aimed at clarification rather than a sweeping overhaul.

SLIM Phase Two

With the adoption of the team's report by the Commission and its broad endorsement by the Council of Ministers, the second phase of the process, implementation, began. This phase was kicked off in a meeting in Brussels in February 1999. The most significant outcome of the meeting was the decision to proceed with a revision of the EMC Directive itself. In choosing this route, the alternative of revising the Commission guidelines on the Application of the EMC Directive was explicitly rejected. Although this approach would have allowed faster implementation of the SLIM recommendations, the guidelines do not have the legal standing of the directive itself.

Therefore, a revised EMC Directive will become European legislation, and all European Union (EU) member states will be required to incorporate it into their national legislation within two years of its Official Journal publication date. When this time frame is added to the estimated two to three years required to rewrite the directive, the whole process is likely to take up to five years. The one advantage of this lengthy process is that there will be many further opportunities for improvement of the original legislation.

A second outcome of the meeting was highly significant. Some EU member states argued that the conformance provisions of the EMC Directive should be aligned with other directives, such as the Low Voltage Directive, by applying the standard conformance modules. This change would have introduced the self-certification Module A as the main route to compliance and removed Articles 10.1 and 10.2 (incidentally making competent bodies obsolete). The balance of opinion, however, was that the EMC Directive is more complex than the Low Voltage Directive and that there is a need for third-party involvement in certain types of equipment. One participant noted that, in Europe, the CE mark for safety has so far failed to displace national safety marks, which suggests that, by contrast, the EMC Directive process may have more credibility.

The next step in the implementation process is the creation of a SLIM working group, whose membership may include one representative from each member state administration, the chairmen of notified and competent bodies, and representatives from industry and standards organizations.

The first meeting of this working group was scheduled for May 1999. Its main topics will be

Installations and large machines.
Whether to redefine EMC environments.
Alignment of the directive with the 1997 guidelines.
Definitions for terms such as component, apparatus, and direct function.

These topics present a greater challenge than may at first be evident, for not only must the resulting directive be acceptable to the Commission lawyers, it must also be capable of translation into 15 languages without changing its basic meaning.

Revising Standards

Standards related to the EMC Directive are to be considered by a separate committee run by the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC). This group may look into the following issues:

Problems have occurred with specific standards, such as EN 61000-3-2 and EN 61800-3, that have required significant technical revision after publication. The committee will need to decide whether the process used included sufficient technical expertise and sufficient public comment.
Concerns have been expressed about the perceived proliferation of immunity standards. For instance, it has been noted that the 1992 version of the light-industrial generic immunity standard, EN 50082-1, covered only three phenomena, whereas the current version covers eight. While it may well be argued that immunity is becoming more necessary as the number of electromagnetic hazards in the environment increases, acceptance of this argument would entail additional cost for manufacturers.
Many standards have been frequently amended. Even when a standard has not been subjected to a total rewrite, it has usually undergone a number of minor changes. It is difficult for test laboratories and manufacturers alike to stay abreast of this continual change.

It can be seen that, given the long revision time, there will be no immediate changes resulting from SLIM. Certainly, anyone hoping for an immediate reduction in testing will be disappointed. In the long run, however, the SLIM process will result in a new directive that is easier to interpret and less confusing than the current version.

SLIM EMC Recommendations

R1. The EMC Directive should remain a total harmonization directive by which free movement of goods is ensured.

R2. The text should ensure that no additional national measures related to EMC are created. The directive should cover all relevant aspects of EMC that would otherwise allow for such national measures on the basis of Article 36 of the Treaty.

When assessing the EMC Directive, the global dimension should be taken into account to ensure that

R3. EMC legislation should not result in added costs for consumers due to unique requirements where this cannot be appropriately justified as being essential for the European market only.

R4. European industry should address a global marketplace without unjustified additional costs and delays.

R5. Functional safety should be addressed in directives containing essential safety requirements.

R6. The impact of functional safety should be investigated in relation to both hardware and software.

R7. The Standing Committee or the Working Parties under these directives should confirm whether or not functional safety is taken into account under their directives.

R8. Immunity requirements should be more fully addressed in the EMC Directive to prevent new national legislation.

R9. The protection requirements of the directive should contain the emissions and immunity requirements in such detail that only specific technical questions (e.g., levels, test methods, requirements specific to certain products or product families) are left to standardization.

R10. The required "high level of protection" should be achieved by mandatory emissions requirements as the first line of defense of the limited electromagnetic spectrum. Those emissions requirements should take into account radiated and conducted emissions.

R11. The protection requirements should define certain classes of EMC environment and conditions for the intended use of products within those classified environments.

R12. Suitable definitions of large machines and installations should be included in the directive; large machines should be treated as installations. For clarification, the definitions of small installations, large machines, and networks should be added.

R13. In the absence of complaints, installations and large machines should not be subject to assessment tests. If assessment is necessary, a possible way may be to monitor emissions from the installation at a reasonable distance from the perimeter of the installation (radiation) or at the utility supply connection point (conduction).

R14. The directive should be amended in a way that compliance of a fixed installation with the essential requirements of the directive should be ensured by following the EMC assembly instructions given by the manufacturer of the constituent parts and using a method of installation which is in accordance with good engineering practice within the context of the installation, as well as installation rules (national, regional, or local). For fixed installations there should be no need for CE marking, an EC declaration of conformity, or involvement of a competent body.

R15. The directive should allow installations to be constituted by either

CE-marked apparatus (CE + CE = CE).
Apparatus with CE marking and parts without.
No CE-marked parts at all.

In case of a challenge, appropriate measures have to be performed either on component or on installation level (compensation measures) to bring the installation in compliance with the protection requirements of the directive.

R16. The Commission should request from European standardization bodies the setting up of a strategic review panel of the EMC standards within the framework of the EMC Directive. Such a panel should consist of a representative of the Commission, standardization experts from member states, industry, CENELEC, and ETSI. The task of the panel should be to take a critical look at all EMC standards, their relevance, and their applicability. Regarding preparation of future standards the panel should further discuss the necessity of a new mandate from the Commission to CENELEC and ETSI in order to produce fewer and more usable standards.

R17. The Commission should not propose any new vertical EMC legislation unless it is related to safety or it is clearly demonstrated that the particular issue cannot be dealt with adequately within the EMC Directive.

R18. The Commission should consider whether there is any need for EMC provisions in existing vertical directives given that relevant technical standards can be produced under the EMC Directive.

R19. The directive should be reviewed with a view to revision taking due account of the guidelines, in order to incorporate

Definitions specific to the EMC Directive (components, autonomous function, EMC passive equipment, etc.).
The EMC analysis process.
The procedure for application of the Directive to installations, apparatus, and systems with various configurations.
Any other areas which could be usefully transferred.

R20. The team underlines that several individual recommendations made above relating mainly, but not exclusively, to the Commission guidelines should result in the directive being reviewed and amended. The team therefore recommends that a review of the directive be initiated by the Commission.