1. 4th Meeting of the Mutual Recognition Committee
Enterprise and Industry
4th Meeting of the Mutual Recognition Committee
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Brussels, 7th December 2012

2. Yearly reports and notifications 2011
All MS have submitted the report from May 2010 to May 2011
All MS have submitted the supplementary report May – December 2011
410 notifications received during 2011
374 notifications received during 2012 (until 31-OCT)
4 countries notifying
Re-occurring problem - some decisions reportedly adopted, but not notified to the Commission

3. Main issues
The majority of issues (notifications + requests for information) concern few specific categories of goods
Some difficulties highlighted
Impact of the MRR in the free movement of goods
Requests from the MS
Requests from the Commission
Difficulties: reference to this afternoon's seminar, where concrete examples may be presented. These examples may help contact points to give better advice to national authorities and to economic operators. Overall this may contribute to minimizing discrepancies in the number of notifications undertaken under the Regulation and the number of the decisions taken by Member States’ authorities.

4. 1. Specific categories of goods
Same as highlighted in past years' reports:
Articles of precious metal
Foodstuffs
Food additives and food supplements
Construction products
Fertilisers
Automotive spare parts
... And also: electrical products, spring water, smoke detectors….

5. 2. Difficulties
Economic actors seem to consider PCP as a body responsible for the adoption of decisions on mutual recognition
Some economic operators seek a response from the PCP to circumvent or go against a previous response from the administration
Alleged lack of clarity on the deadlines and steps of the procedure. Uncertainty about when MRR should apply (especially prior authorization procedures)

6. 2. Difficulties (2)
Difficulties to demonstrate that a product has been lawfully marketed in another MS
Difficulties by economic operators in understanding “harmonised” and “non-harmonised” areas
Difficulties in identifying which legal provisions apply and/or which are the relevant national authorities in charge

7. 2. Difficulties (3) Stringent deadlines
Different testing methods used in the MS
Other difficulties: language, character of the questions – often on areas outside the competence of the PCP)

8. 3. Impact of the MRR
MRR generally estimated as positive. Benefits for economic operators and administrations too (less burdened with requests for conformity assessment)
Great preventive importance
Highest added value estimated in terms of information provided to enterprises (especially SMEs) by the PCP

9. 4. Requests from MS Information, training sessions, workshops for PCPs
More contacts with PCP
Existing guidance documents to be updated/clarified (prior authorisations, GPSD)
New guidance documents

10. 5. Requests from the Commission
2012 yearly report (January to December) to be submitted before 28 February 2013
All decisions to be notified to the Commission as established by Art. 6(2) of the MRR
Correct address to be used
Updated contact details for PCP/contact members for MR
Deadlines to be respected
Art. 6(2): "Any decision as referred to in Article 2(1) shall be taken and notified to the economic operator concerned and to the Commission within a period of 20 working days from the expiry of the time limit for the receipt of comments from the economic operator referred to in paragraph 1 of this Article), the information to be transmitted to the Commission must actually be the notifications themselves, as received by the economic operators and within the established deadline.

11. Contact & notification address
European Commission
Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry, Unit C/2
B-1049 Brussels, Belgium
Fax: