Legislative process of the ErP ecodesign directive

This section provides a brief summary of the legislative process associated to the ErP Ecodesign Directive (2009/125/EC), which was transposed to Spanish legislation by means of Royal Decree 187/2011.

Further details are available in the Guide on this Directive published by IHOBE in 2011.

WORK PLAN
The European Commission periodically adopts Work Plans which list the priority categories to be studied and regulated during a specific period. Three work plans have been adopted so far:

PREPARATORY STUDY
Once this list has been defined, the EC commissions the Preparatory Studies, which are produced by external consultants, with the participation of the interested parties, where they analyse each product category setting out the main associated economic, technical and environmental aspects. A section is also dedicated within the broad content of those reports to the enactment of recommendations regarding possible ecodesign measures.

CONSULTATION FORUM
The Consultation Forum is made up of experts from the different interested parties, which draws up a Draft Regulation, based on the results of the preparatory study and the contribution of the interested parties. Another possible channel is self-regulation, where the sector proposes self-regulation measures.

STEERING COMITEE
The Draft Regulation is proposed and voted on by the Steering Committee, with representatives of the 27 Member States. After the vote in favour of the Committee, the European Parliament and the Council has 3 months to exercise their right to review the Regulation.

PUBLICATION OF THE REGULATION
Once the previous administrative formality has been completed, the Regulation is adopted and published in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). Once published, it will come into force on the date indicated (usually 20 days after of its publication) without any additional legal formality being required by the Member States.

REVIEW OF THE REGULATION
Due to the technical progress, the Regulations must be periodically reviewed. The review period is indicated in the Regulation and is usually 5 years. This review process is similar to the one set out above, without there being any need for a prior study to identify possible changes to the state of the art of the product.

N.B.: The CONSULTATION FORUM and STEERING COMMITTEE stages have been combined into a single step in the datasheets in order to simplify the outline.