Development of the European standardisation on agricultural machinery safety

Up to the seventies of last century every European country was completely independent from the point of view of safety and ergonomics in agricultural machinery. Some attempts to introduce standards had been performed since the sixties by OECD, but the published codes were not compulsory. The same situation was common to ISO standards. In 1974 the EU (European Union, at that time EEC) published the first Directive on tractors (74/150/EEC). From that moment all tractors in the EU shall follow the EU directives (now defined "old approach directives'). At the moment the tractor directives are more than 40, of which 23 are independent and the others relative to new developments/ integration/etc. At present they are written in the 11 official languages of the 15 EU members. In the field of agricultural machinery only the tractor has been examined The problem was what to do for all other types of agricultural machinery. To solve the question, in 1989 the EU decided to leave the "old approach directives", to introduce the "new approach" ones. These include the Machine Directive 98/37/EC (former 89/392/EEC, etc.) and have large objectives. The same objectives are better determined by specific standards. The EU and the other western European common market (EFTA, now reduced to Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) charged the CEN (European Standard Commission) to perform this task publishing the EN standards. The CEN has now 19 members (15 EU, 3 EFTA and the Czech Republic), only 3 official languages (English, French and German) and for the approval of a standard a qualified majority is sufficient. Activity on agricultural machinery is carried out by the CEN/TC (Technical Committee) 144. The basic work principle is different from the one of EC directives (former EEC). There is no compulsory examination of the machine by an official organisation. A manufacturer self-certification is sufficient; a seal (CE) on the machine must accompany it together with a declaration of conformity to the Machine Directive. In 10 years about 30 standards on agricultural machinery have been approved and other 30 are being examined Following this philosophy the safety and ergonomics principles are common in all CEN countries. Recently, following the Vienna Agreement between CEN and ISO, a collaboration of the two organisations was decided, in order to avoid work duplication and confrontation. A similar agreement has also been established in the field of agricultural tractors between EU and OECD.