STATUS OF NEW EU DIRECTIVESSTATUS OF NEW EU DIRECTIVESPredrag Šinik, EU Directives committee chairman

EFEE

25 STATE MEMBERS:Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Czech republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Slovak republic, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, United Kingdom.

COMPANY AND INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS:14 company members & 56 individual members,

STANDING COMMITTEE’S:Finance & Audit, Conference, Elections, EUExcert, Newsletter, Membership & Marketing, Environmenta, Constitution & By-laws, Shot firing and EU Directives comitee.

Board members of EU Directives Committee

• Predrag Šinik, chairman, EFEE board member (Slovenia)• Jörg Rennert, EFEE board member (Germany)• Jose Carlos Gois, EFEE board member (Portugal)• Manfred Dax, member • Johan Finsteen Gjødvad, EFEE board member (Denmark)• Ricardo Chavez, member (France)• Igor Kopal, member (Slovakia)• Jan Klusaček, member (Czech Republic)• Krzyzstof Pietkiewicz, member (Poland)• Edmond Rosseau, member (Belgium)• Rolf Schillinger, member (Germany)

Work programe 2009

Enhancing the Security of Explosives in the European Union:

a. Implementation of the Commission Directive 2008/43/EC (Labelling and Traceability Directive)

b. TRANSPORT SCEPYLT, the Pan-European Information System on Explosives Control to Prevent and Fight against Terrorism

c. The own use on site mixing explosives - Certification of on–site mixedExplosives

d. The Explosives Notified Bodies

e. Update on the Action Plan on enhancing the security of explosives

Action Plan on Enhancing the Security of Explosives

• On 25 March 2004 the European Council established as a priority the need "to ensure terrorist organisations and groups are starved of the components of their trade". The European Council noted in particular that “there is a need to ensure greater security of firearms, explosives, bomb-making equipment and technologies".

• One of the key measures undertaken was the setting up of an Explosives Security Experts Task Force (ESETF), with a view to preparing recommendations for actions. The ESETF completed its work in June 2007 with the identification of 50 recommendations for actions. These recommendations form the basis for the Action Plan.

• The objective of the Action Plan is to combat the use of explosive devices by terrorists within the EU. This will be done while taking full account of relevant economic issues.

• The Action Plan is built on three pillars (prevention, detection and response containing specific measures), explosive precursors, the supply chain (storage, transport, traceability) and detection.

Cooperation within EU

Main tasks of the EU Directives Committee

• follow up directives, regulations and legislation on EU level;

• review of the current situation within EU concerning explosives and transport of other dangerous goods;

• monitoring of the EU legislation concerning the fight against terrorism;

• informing our members;

• co-operation with related associations;

• security in the field of explosives technology;

• collaboration on regulations for the transport of explosives by road;

• promotion of the profession.

The importance of Track & Trace Directive 2008/43/EC of 4 April 2008

setting up, pursuant to Council Directive 93/15/EEC,a system for the identification and traceability

of explosives for civil uses.

Background

The main purpose of the Track & Trace Directive 2008/43/EC is to establish a harmonised system for the unique identification and traceability of packaged civil explosives in Europe and to ensure safe and secured circulation of explosives on the community market.

Directive applies to explosives in cartridges, primers / boosters, detonating cord, detonators, shaped charges and other physical explosives article.

Requirement of the T&T Directive is to uniquely identify every explosives article upon manufacture, track and record its whereabouts at all times throughout the item’s life cycle and maintain these records for a period of 10 years after they have passed through your possession.

Each company throughout the supply chain handling (ie, manufacturing, storing, transporting or using) the explosives items must have arrangements in place to meet the requirements.

Posture in the year 2009

One human life in the fight against terrorism is worth 1 - 1,5 mio eur + the damage.

This argument showed the necessity of quick implementation of the Directive 2008/43/EC with no possibility of its postponement.

Implementation date: 5 April 2012.(political decision; with no possible postponement)

But we started the activities and filled application for postponement …

Due to the complexity of the T&T Directive we started several activities topresent our arguments for the postponement of the implementation date to the year 2013 - 2015.

• In summer 2010 EFFE (for the first time) initiated Koln meeting of 4 associations: FEEM (Federation of European Explosive Manufacturers), EUROMINES (European Association of Mining Industries), UEPG (European Aggregates Association) and EFEE.

settlement of common postures = postponement till the year 2015

letters to European Commision

on-going in-depth cooperation of four associations

Some of our arguments were …

• application area (safety fuses, primer caps, …), supply chain (producers, distributors, end users), small articles, health and safety issue, educational level, economic effect …

• difficulties with translation in different languages of the member states (different interpretations);

• a review of the application area of the Directive should be performed;• many national Federation gave no support to the members in

implementing the track and traceability directive;• many members did not know anything about any activities regarding

softwear for data collection system in their country;• the Commission’s Directive 2008/43/EC was not adopted and published

by 5th of April 2009 in several member states;

And also …

Close to 700.000 tons of explosives and 80 million detonators are detonated every year in Europe for civil purposes. Almost all of these explosives are manufactured, transported, stored and used without causing any major incident or alarm to the general public.

The safety & security record of the explosives industry is considerably higher than almost any other industry of a similar nature.

These volumes represent 350 million separate explosives items annually (packaged explosives, detonators, detonating cord, boosters, primers etc. without bulk explosives) with a value of 1.500 million Euro. Within the Supply Chain (manufacturer – carrier - dealer – distributor – end user) these items change location 3 to 4 times. The frequency of civil explosive shipments in EU-Europe is around 500.000 movements per year (not including pyrotechnics, military and hunting & sporting ammunitions).

In view of these issues EFEE recommended a postponement of the application of the Directive from 5 April 2012 to 5 April 2015 as far as the entire supply chain is concerned.

For manufacturers and importers of explosives, the marking obligation should already start in April 2013 in order to ensure that by 2015 all stocks are marked with the unique identification.

Activities

• EU Directives Committee contacted FEEM (Federation of European Explosive Manufacturers), EUROMINES (European Association of Mining Industries), UEPG (European Aggregates Association), ESETF (Explosives Security Experts Task Force), Deutscher Sprengverband e.V., FECC (European Federation of Chemical Distributors), EFMA (European Fertilizer Manufacturers Association), AIC (Agricultural Industries Confederation) and all national associations

• Before and after the publishing of the T&T Directive FEEM had a number of meetings with the relevant EU Commissions and Competent Authorities / Notified Bodies of the majority of the larger EU countries concerning the consequences of the Track & Trace Directive to the Explosives Industry, their distributors and end-users.

• Letters to the European Commission Directorate-General Industry & Enterprise in Brussels:

- FEEM wrote a letter on 23 August 2010 applying officially for a postponement & amendment of the Directive 2008/43/EC of 4 April 2008;

- UEPG wrote a letter to the European Commission on 8 September 2010;- EFEE wrote a letter on 10 October 2010.

Action plan

With the Commission we agreed to the following compromise

1. Manufacturers have to label & mark according to the regulations of the Directive as of 5 April 2013 (all products manufactured after that date must be marked).

2. For all other down-stream users in the supply chain (dealers, distributors, end users) and for all old stocks in manufacturers’ inventories the Directive will apply from 5 April 2015.

3. New draft Directive allows that the required information is being affixed on the smallest packaging unit (certain articles which are too small to affix the code of the manufacturing site and the electronically readable information or where affixing a unique identification is technically impossible due to their shape, design or specification). Very small articles: ≤ 8 mm regulation.

4. FEEM, together with the user industries, should draw up an implementation plan in order to justify the length of the requested deadline prolongation and to provide assurance that the new labelling and traceability system will be fully operational by 5 April 2015.

After the Norwegian bombing …

Swedish Secretary of Justice expressed her doubts if the postponement of the Track & Trace Directive would be beneficial to the enhanced security requirements.

EU Director General for Home Affairs consulted DG Industry & Enterprise for further explanations why the postponement would be necessary.

On 8 September 2011 we received a draft of DG Industry & Enterprise’s letter for further comments. DG Industry & Enterprise is completely supporting our’s argumentation towards FEEM’s proposal to delay the implementation of the Directive to April 2013/2015.

Next steps

Delegates to the next EU explosives working group meeting on 19 October 2011 in Brussels will be asked for their (qualified majority) vote.

If the vote is in favour of a delay the Commission will postulate a new Directive beginning of 2012 with the implementation dates 2013/2015 which will be implemented into national legislation by 5 April 2012.

Special thanks to:

- Hans M. Meyer (FEEM president)- Mike Schmahl (president of WG at EU commission)- Jörg Rennert (Dresdner Sprengschule, EFEE member of the board)- Manfred Dax (Sprewa, vice president of German blasting association)- EFEE board and EU directives council members.

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