Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 November 2024 laying down harmonised rules for the marketing of construction products and repealing Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 (Text with EEA relevance)
Regulation (EU) 2024/3110 of the European Parliament and of the Councilof 27 November 2024laying down harmonised rules for the marketing of construction products and repealing Regulation (EU) No 305/2011(Text with EEA relevance)THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION,Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, and in particular Article 114 thereof,Having regard to the proposal from the European Commission,After transmission of the draft legislative act to the national parliaments,Having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social CommitteeOJ C 75, 28.2.2023, p. 159.,Acting in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedurePosition of the European Parliament of 10 April 2024 (not yet published in the Official Journal) and decision of the Council of 5 November 2024.,Whereas:(1)Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) No 305/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 March 2011 laying down harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products and repealing Council Directive 89/106/EEC (OJ L 88, 4.4.2011, p. 5). was adopted in the context of the internal market, in order to harmonise conditions for the marketing of construction products and to remove obstacles to trade in construction products between Member States.(2)Under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, in order for a construction product covered by a harmonised technical specification to be placed on the market, the manufacturer is obliged to draw up a declaration of performance for such product. The manufacturer assumes the responsibility for the conformity of the product with such declared performance and with applicable requirements. Manufacturers are exempted from this obligation for certain products.(3)Experience with the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, the evaluation conducted by the Commission in 2019 as well as the report on the European Organisation for Technical Assessment have shown the underperformance of the framework on construction products in various respects, including as regards the development of standards and the market surveillance. In addition, feedback received in the course of the evaluation has pointed to the need of reducing the overlaps, removing contradictions and repetitive requirements, including in relation to other Union legislation, in order to provide more legal clarity and limit the administrative burden on the economic operators. It is therefore necessary to update and align legal obligations of economic operators with those provided for in other Union legislation, as well as to add new provisions including as regards market surveillance, so that legal certainty is increased and that diverging interpretations are avoided.(4)It is necessary to establish well-functioning information flows, including via electronic means and using a machine-readable format, to ensure that coherent and transparent information about construction products performances is available along the supply chain. This is expected to increase transparency and to improve efficiency in terms of information transfer. Ensuring digital access to comprehensive information about construction products would contribute to the digitalisation of the construction sector altogether, making the framework fit for the digital age. Moreover, providing access to reliable and durable information would also mean that economic operators and other actors would not contribute to each other’s non-compliance with requirements.(5)The European Parliament resolution of 10 March 2021 on the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 laying down harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products (the Construction Products Regulation)OJ C 474, 24.11.2021, p. 41. welcomed the Commission’s objective to make the construction sector more sustainable by addressing the sustainability performance of construction products in the revision of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, as announced in Commission’s communication of 11 March 2020 entitled "A new Circular Economy Action Plan. For a cleaner and more competitive Europe". The Council Conclusions on the Circular Economy in the Construction Sector of 28 November 2019 urged the Commission to facilitate the circularity of construction products when revising Regulation (EU) No 305/2011. In its Communication of 10 March 2020 entitled "A New Industrial Strategy for Europe" the Commission emphasised the need to address the sustainability of construction products and highlighted a more sustainable built environment as essential for Europe’s transition towards climate-neutrality. In its Communication of 5 May 2021 entitled "Updating the 2020 New Industrial Strategy: Building a stronger Single Market for Europe’s recovery" the Commission identified construction as one of the priority ecosystems that face the most important challenges meeting climate and sustainability goals and embracing the digital transformation, and on which the competitiveness of the construction sector depends. It is therefore appropriate to lay down rules for declaring environmental sustainability performance of construction products, including the possibility of establishing relevant threshold levels and classes. Classes of performance for the environmental performance of products should accurately reflect the diversity of products and their state of the art and should allow for the most environmentally friendly products to be accurately identified. Moreover, when referring to environmental impacts, such classes of performance should be understandable, should not be misleading, nor allow for burden shifting.(6)Similarly, the 2022 EU Strategy on Standardisation set out in the Commission Communication of 2 February 2022, entitled "An EU Strategy on Standardisation – Setting global standards in support of a resilient, green and digital EU single market" identified construction as one of the most pertinent areas where harmonised standards could improve competitiveness and reduce market barriers.(7)Pursuing the environmental goals, including the fight against climate change and the transition towards a circular economy, makes it necessary to establish, without increasing disproportionately bureaucracy and costs for economic operators, especially for small and medium-sized enterprises ("SMEs"), new environmental obligations and to lay the ground for the development and the application of an assessment method for the calculation of the environmental sustainability of construction products. The calculations should cover the life cycle of the product using the methods established through standardisation. For new products the calculated life cycles should include all stages of a product’s life, from raw material acquisition or generation from natural resources, to its final disposal, including potential benefits and loads outside the boundary limits. For used and remanufactured products, the calculated life cycle should start with the deinstallation from a construction work and should include all following stages until final disposal. The Commission should make available software to perform the calculation, in particular the characterisation factors applicable in accordance with European standard EN 15804 or future applicable standards. Any update of this software should be communicated and should trigger the update to the relevant calculations within one year.(8)To ensure safety and functionality of construction products and, by extension, of construction works as well as safety of workers and users, it is necessary to ensure that certain service providers, such as fulfilment service providers, online marketplaces and actors providing intermediary services, do not contribute to the non-compliance of other actors. It is therefore necessary to render relevant provisions applicable also to these services and their providers.(9)To create the necessary link between construction products and the construction works, including buildings, into which they might be incorporated, the notion of construction works should be defined only for the purposes of this Regulation and without prejudice to Member States’ competences to define and regulate construction works and buildings.(10)In order to avoid innovative distribution models being used to circumvent the obligations under this Regulation, it should be clarified that any supply of a product in the course of a commercial activity, including when ownership or possession of the products is transferred as part of the provision of a service, would be considered as the product being made available on the market.(11)Ensuring the free movement of kits for construction products on the internal market would support industry competitiveness. This approach would expand market reach, streamline production processes for companies, and improve convenience for both consumers and businesses.(12)The compliance of construction products with Union legislation often depends on the compliance of their key parts with that legislation. However, since key parts are often integrated into various construction products, ensuring safety and the protection of the environment, including climate, would be better achieved if those key parts were assessed upstream, that is if their performance and conformity were assessed beforehand and independently from the assessment of the final construction product into which they are integrated. Similarly, market surveillance would be more efficient if non-compliant key parts could be identified and targeted. Therefore, it is necessary to lay down mandatory rules applicable to key parts of construction products. The same approach should be used for parts or materials intended to be used for construction products which would benefit from the voluntary application of the Regulation.(13)Items, such as construction products, their key parts or other parts or materials, can be placed on the market as such or as a set of separate components intended to be used together and should be subject to dedicated harmonised technical specifications. To simplify the application of this Regulation, the items and components falling under its scope should be clearly identified. However, such identification should not preclude the possibility to market the components as construction products when these components are placed on the market separately, as key parts or otherwise.(14)While keeping a broad scope for the possible application of this Regulation, its application to certain products already harmonised by other Union legal acts should be excluded to avoid regulatory overlap. For the same purpose, it is also important to distinguish between those aspects of the same products which are covered by this Regulation and those aspects which are regulated by other sectorial legislation. This would be the case, for example, for lighting products and electrical and electronic products, which are subject to Directives 2014/35/EUDirective 2014/35/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making available on the market of electrical equipment designed for use within certain voltage limits (OJ L 96, 29.3.2014, p. 357)., 2014/30/EUDirective 2014/30/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to electromagnetic compatibility (OJ L 96, 29.3.2014, p. 79)., 2014/53/EUDirective 2014/53/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 April 2014 on the harmonisation of the laws of the Member States relating to the making available on the market of radio equipment and repealing Directive 1999/5/EC (OJ L 153, 22.5.2014, p. 62). and 2001/95/ECDirective 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 December 2001 on general product safety (OJ L 11, 15.1.2002, p. 4). of the European Parliament and of the Council. The broad scope of this Regulation should however not be interpreted as an intention to harmonise all products which can be placed on the market for incorporation into construction works. Products which are not suitable for harmonisation, for instance due to their relation to cultural heritage, their usage of specific materials which can only be sourced in certain localities or to heterogeneous conditions between Member States, should not be subject to the harmonising effect of this Regulation. This could be achieved through the active choice of not pursuing their coverage through harmonised technical specifications.(15)Used products subject to this Regulation imported from third countries, should, in the absence of dedicated rules for used products, be subject to the same rules as new construction products.(16)Construction products placed on the market in the outermost regions of the Union are often imported from neighbouring countries, and are therefore not subject to requirements laid down in Union law. Subjecting those construction products to such requirements would be disproportionately costly. At the same time, construction products manufactured in the outermost regions hardly circulate in other Member States. Therefore, Member States should have the possibility to exempt construction products placed on the market in the outermost regions of the Union from those requirements.(17)To ensure that a strong link between standards and the regulatory needs of the Member States is maintained, an expert group should support the Commission in the preparation of standardisation requests and other harmonised technical specifications. The work of the expert group should follow a working plan established on the basis of inputs from Member States in addition to overall Union priorities such as EU climate and circular economy goals. In establishing the priorities of the working plan, the Commission should pay particular attention to the replacement of harmonised technical specifications adopted under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011. The Commission should inform the Member States and the European Parliament on a yearly basis about progress in implementing the working plan, including information on the standardisation requests issued, the number of standards proposed by the European standardisation organisations, the average time needed for the assessment of standards by the Commission, and the ratio between standards accepted and rejected by the Commission.(18)In accordance with the principle of proportionality, it is necessary and appropriate for the achievement of the basic objective of harmonising the internal market for construction products to address the regulatory needs of Member States by defining only the necessary essential characteristics to assess the product performance. The definition of these essential characteristics and the assessment methods applicable to them should provide the less onerous approach with sufficient reliability and avoid duplications and inconsistencies. This Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve this objective, in accordance with Article 5(4) of the Treaty on European Union (TEU).(19)In order to strive for a maximum of regulatory coherence, this Regulation should to the extent possible build on the horizontal legal framework, in this case namely on Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on European standardisation, amending Council Directives 89/686/EEC and 93/15/EEC and Directives 94/9/EC, 94/25/EC, 95/16/EC, 97/23/EC, 98/34/EC, 2004/22/EC, 2007/23/EC, 2009/23/EC and 2009/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Decision 87/95/EEC and Decision No 1673/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (OJ L 316, 14.11.2012, p. 12).. It follows the recent trend in product legislation to develop a fall-back solution where the European standardisation organisations do not deliver valid harmonised standards. When a European standardisation organisation delivers a harmonised standard in accordance with the standardisation request which includes elements that do not satisfy the regulatory needs of Member States, or are not aligned with the Union safety, environmental, circularity and climate objectives, the Commission should revise the standardisation request or make the harmonised standard mandatory with restrictions. A fall-back solution should be possible to apply to harmonised standards which are not compliant with the standardisation request and address a product family or product category which is either not previously covered by a harmonised standard, or is already covered by a harmonised standard applicable for more than 5 years, or is covered by a harmonised standard applicable with restrictions.(20)Where harmonised standards lay down the rules for the assessment of performance with regard to essential characteristics relevant for the construction codes of Member States, those standards should be made mandatory for the purposes of application of this Regulation as performance harmonised standards, as only such mandatory standards reach the goal of permitting the free circulation of products, whilst ensuring the Member States’ ability to request product characteristics related to the basic requirements for construction works in view of their specific national situation such as differences in climate, geology and geography and other conditions. When pursued together, these two goals require that products are assessed by a single assessment method, therefore the method needs to be mandatory. However, voluntary standards can be used to make product requirements, specified for the relevant product family or product category by delegated acts, even more concrete, following the path of Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the CouncilDecision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products, and repealing Council Decision 93/465/EEC (OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, p. 82).. In line with Decision No 768/2008/EC, those voluntary standards should be able to provide a presumption of conformity with the requirements covered by them.(21)The assessment of performance with regard to essential characteristics may require the establishment of threshold levels. Voluntary threshold levels have to be fulfilled in relation to certain applications. Mandatory threshold levels have to be fulfilled as a condition for placing the product on the internal market irrespective of its application.(22)In order to contribute to the objectives of the European Green Deal set out in Commission’s communication of 11 December 2019 entitled "The European Green Deal", the Circular Economy Action Plan and the Zero Pollution Action Plan set out in Commission’s communication of 12 May 2021 entitled "Pathway to a Healthy Planet for All. EU Action Plan: "Towards Zero Pollution for Air, Water and Soil"", and to ensure safe construction products, safety being one of the goals to be pursued in the legislation based on Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), product requirements related to functionality, safety, and protection of environment, including climate, are necessary. When setting these requirements, the Commission should address the safety risks and take into account the product’s potential contribution to achieving Union climate, environmental and energy efficiency objectives over the course of their life cycle. Those requirements do not relate to the performance of construction products. Contrary to its predecessor Council Directive 89/106/EECCouncil Directive 89/106/EEC of 21 December 1988 on the approximation of laws, regulations and administrative provisions of the Member States relating to construction products (OJ L 40, 11.2.1989, p. 12)., Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 does not provide for the possibility to establish such product requirements. However, certain harmonised standards for construction products contain such product requirements. Those standards demonstrate that there is a practical need for such requirements on functionality, safety, and protection of environment. Article 114 TFEU as the legal basis of this Regulation also imposes the pursuit of a high level of health, safety and protection of the environment. Thus, this Regulation should reintroduce or validate product requirements. Hence, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission to specify those requirements for the respective product family or product category.(23)Manufacturing and distribution of construction products becomes ever more complex, leading to the emergence of new specialised operators, such as fulfilment service providers. For reasons of clarity, certain generic obligations, including on cooperation with authorities, should be applicable to all those involved in the supply chain.(24)In order to foster harmonised practices amongst Member States even where a consensus about these practices could not be found, the Commission should be empowered to adopt, with regard to a limited range of issues, implementing acts on the implementation of this Regulation. The respective empowerments should concern the obligations and rights of economic operators and the obligations of notified bodies.(25)In order to improve the legal certainty and to mitigate the fragmentation of the Union market for construction products it is necessary to clearly define the area regulated at Union level, the so-called "harmonised zone", as opposed to the elements remaining within the competence of Member States. Member States remain competent to lay down provisions on construction works, including on their design and dimensioning. The establishment of the harmonised zone should not affect the right of Member States to specify national requirements on construction works and should not reduce the level of protection already existing and justified in the Member States. National environmental policies applicable to construction works should not be considered as prohibitions or barriers to the making available of products on the market as long as they respect the harmonised zone.(26)Member States set the safety level for construction works on the basis of their responsibilities towards their citizens, while the Union determines the framework conditions for the internal market. The competence to adopt provisions on construction works remains with the Member States. The basic requirements for construction works set out in this Regulation should establish the links to construction products that are technically necessary, and serve as a basis for issuing standardisation requests to the European standardisation organisations for the development of harmonised standards for construction products, corresponding delegated acts as well as for the development of European assessment documents.(27)The harmonised zone should also apply to public contracts, grants or other positive incentives with the exception of fiscal incentives.(28)In order to strike a balance between mitigating the fragmentation of the market and the legitimate interests of Member States to regulate construction works, it is necessary to provide for a mechanism to better reflect the needs of the Member States in the development of harmonised technical specifications. For the same reason, an additional mechanism of prior authorisation should be established, allowing Member States to set, based on imperative grounds of health and safety of persons or of protection of the environment, requirements other than those laid down in the harmonised technical specifications for products covered by the harmonised zone. This mechanism should give Member States the possibility, while awaiting updated harmonised technical specifications addressing their regulatory needs, to notify and seek authorisation for national measures affecting the performance of an essential characteristic not addressed by the harmonised technical specification. This mechanism should be complementary to a Member State’s possibility to notify the Commission, in accordance with Article 114 TFEU, when it deems it necessary to introduce national provisions based on new scientific evidence relating to the protection of the environment or the working environment on grounds of a problem specific to that Member State in contradiction with harmonised technical specifications. In order to ensure that authorised national measures only remain as temporary deviations from the harmonised zone, it is important to enable swift consultations on the need to update harmonised technical specifications in light of those regulatory needs, including, where appropriate, through standardisation requests with deadlines specifically set to address the urgency at hand.(29)A circular economy, the key element of the Circular Economy Action Plan, can be promoted by mandatory deposit-refund systems and the obligation of manufacturers to regain ownership of new, surplus or unsold non-custom made products. Member States should therefore be allowed to take such measures and to establish obligations regarding the collection and the treatment of products for waste. The owner of the product should be in charge of the transport back to the distributor, importer or manufacturer.(30)In order to enhance legal clarity and reduce the administrative burden for the economic operators, it is necessary to avoid that construction products are subject to multiple assessments regarding the same aspect of health and safety of persons or protection of the environment, including climate, under different Union legal acts. This was confirmed by the REFIT platform, established by Commission Decision C(2015) 3261, recommending that the Commission gives priority to addressing the problems of overlapping and repetitive requirements. While not reducing or encroaching on the level of protection already existing and justified in Member States at construction level, the Commission should thus be able to determine the conditions under which the fulfilment of obligations provided for in other Union legal acts also fulfils certain obligations of this Regulation, where otherwise the same aspect of health and safety of persons or protection of the environment, including climate, would be assessed in parallel under this Regulation and other Union law.(31)Moreover, in order to avoid diverging practices of Member States and economic operators, the power to adopt implementing acts in accordance with Article 291 TFEU should be granted to the Commission to determine whether certain items fall within the definition of product.(32)As this Regulation is developed in line with the framework of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 13 June 2024 establishing a framework for the setting of ecodesign requirements for sustainable products, amending Directive (EU) 2020/1828 and Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 and repealing Directive 2009/125/EC (OJ L, 2024/1781, 28.6.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/1781/oj). but with its provisions adapted to the sectorial specificities of construction products, it will be, with limited exceptions, the legal act used for harmonising all relevant aspects of construction products, including sustainability aspects even though these might also be addressed through Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. If a policy need is identified horizontally within the framework of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the Commission should primarily use this Regulation for addressing this need in regard to construction products. Only in exceptional cases where requirements under this Regulation are insufficient and cannot be amended or complemented in a reasonable time, it should be possible to apply Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 in a complementary manner to construction products, provided the administrative cost entailed, including as a result of economic operators potentially becoming subject to two conformity assessment procedures, is shown to be reasonable. As an exception, in the case of energy-related products included in ecodesign working plans which are also construction products and for intermediate products within the meaning of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, with the exception of cement, priority for the setting of sustainability requirements will be given to that Regulation. This will be the case for instance for heaters, boilers, heat pumps, water and space heating appliances, fans, cooling and ventilating systems and photovoltaic products, excluding building-integrated photovoltaic panels. This Regulation would still apply in a complementary manner where needed, mainly in relation to safety aspects also taking account of other Union legislation on products such as on gas appliances, low voltage, and machinery. In the case of a conflict with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the relevant provisions of this Regulation should prevail. For other products, in order to avoid unnecessary burden for economic operators, the need may arise to determine the conditions under which the fulfilment of obligations under other Union law also fulfils certain obligations under this Regulation. Therefore the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission to determine such conditions.(33)In order to create an incentive for compliance, the manufacturer of construction products should be liable for incorrect declarations of performance and conformity.(34)The increased reuse of construction products is part of a shift towards a more circular economy and a reduction of the environmental and carbon footprint of construction. The second-hand market for construction products is currently not very developed and requirements for construction products which have previously been used vary widely amongst Member States. Therefore, used construction products, including other used items subject to this Regulation, should be subject to long-term harmonisation by establishing the possibility to develop dedicated harmonised technical specifications under this Regulation. Such harmonised technical specifications should be applicable to used products and as long as the used product is not waste or has ceased to be waste. The adoption of dedicated harmonised technical specifications for used products should not prejudice the scope and definition of waste under Directive 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the CouncilDirective 2008/98/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 November 2008 on waste and repealing certain Directives (OJ L 312, 22.11.2008, p. 3).. However, products directly reused in a construction work should not be considered as placed on the market again and therefore not be subject to any measures under this Regulation.(35)In order to provide clarity about the extent of the harmonised zone, it is important that all harmonised technical specifications are explicit in whether they cover or exclude used products from their scope. The exclusion of used products from the scope of a harmonised technical specification should however not prevent economic operators from opting for the application of this Regulation as if the used product was new.(36)According to the definition of used products, harmonised technical specifications explicitly including used products within their scope should also apply to used products which have undergone a transformative process going beyond checking, cleaning or repairing recovery operations defined by the harmonised technical specification as non-essential transformative processes to the product’s performance. Remanufactured products should, regardless of the harmonised technical specification, benefit from not having to include events before the product’s last deinstallation when calculating its environmental impact over its life cycle. Remanufactured products should also benefit from requirements or incentives that promote a high recycled content.(37)To enhance access to easily available and comprehensive information on construction products, thereby contributing to their safety, functionality and sustainability, it should be ensured that the declaration of performance and conformity provides all information necessary for users and authorities. In view of its utility for users, manufacturers should be able to include into that declaration additional information, provided that the declarations of performance and conformity remain uniform and easily readable and that they are not abused as advertisement.(38)In order to reduce the burden for economic operators, and in particular manufacturers, economic operators issuing declarations of performance and conformity should be allowed to provide copies of those declarations by electronic means, and be authorised to make them available on websites on the conditions that they are unamendable, human and machine readable, available, accessible and unequivocally linked to the product. In order to simplify supply chain communication, declarations of performance and conformity should allow the user – by means of an IT application – to check conformity with the application rules of the Member State where the product is used. An important prerequisite for machine-readable declarations is a standardised IT format, which is required for each harmonised technical specification.(39)In order for the manufacturers to demonstrate that the construction products benefitting from the free movement of goods fulfil relevant Union requirements, it is necessary to require a declaration of conformity complementing the declaration of performance, thus also bringing the regulatory system for construction products closer to Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93 (OJ L 218, 13.8.2008, p. 30).. However, in order to minimise the potential administrative burden, the declaration of conformity and the declaration of performance should be combined. The administrative burden on SMEs should be further minimised through targeted simplification provisions, including sharing test results, recognition of certificates, cascading of technical documentation and declaration without assessment, permitting micro-enterprises to use the more lenient assessment and verification system and reducing the requirements for custom-made non-series products. When such products are installed in an identified single construction work exemptions from the obligation to draw up a declaration of performance and conformity should be possible. In cases where a manufacturer fulfils the criteria for both the application of a simplified procedure and an exemption from the obligation to draw up a declaration of performance and conformity, it should be given the opportunity to choose one of them, or to provide a declaration of performance and conformity without applying the simplified procedure, so as to better adapt its offer to the needs of potential customers.(40)In order to reach alignment with other product legislation and subject to the general principles of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008, the CE marking should be affixed only to construction products for which the manufacturer has drawn up a declaration of performance and conformity. The manufacturer thereby assumes the responsibility for the conformity of the product with the declared performance and the applicable product requirements.(41)The procedural rights of all economic operators and natural or legal persons acting on their behalf in relation to measures, decisions or orders taken by market surveillance authorities and other competent national authorities need to be ensured in line with Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) 2019/1020 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 June 2019 on market surveillance and compliance of products and amending Directive 2004/42/EC and Regulations (EC) No 765/2008 and (EU) No 305/2011 (OJ L 169, 25.6.2019, p. 1).. It is necessary that Member States ensure that adequate appeal procedures against such measures, decisions or orders are in place.(42)To ensure functionality, safety and sustainability of construction products, and by extension of construction works, all economic operators intervening in the supply and distribution chain should take appropriate measures to ensure that they place, make available, or support making available on the market only construction products which are in compliance with the binding Union requirements. In order to improve the legal clarity, it is necessary to set explicitly the obligations of economic operators.(43)It is necessary for manufacturers of construction products to determine the product type in a precise and unequivocal manner in order to ensure a precise basis for assessing the compliance of such product with Union requirements. At the same time, in order to avoid circumvention of the applicable requirements, manufacturers should be prohibited from creating ever new product types where the products in question are, in view of the crucial characteristics, identical.(44)On the internal market, the CE marking should be the only marking demonstrating compliance with assessment methods in relation to essential characteristics covered by harmonised technical specifications. In order to avoid market fragmentation and misleading claims resulting from the application of different assessment methods, the CE marking should be the only marking allowed on products covered by harmonised technical specification indicating that the product in question has been assessed in relation to the essential characteristics covered by harmonised technical specifications and is compliant with the applicable product requirements. The market for construction products faces a proliferation of markings which often create confusion and distrust among market players but also mislead consumers. The use of additional markings negatively impacts the probative value of the CE marking when based on assessment methods which are different than those defined in the relevant harmonised technical specifications. In addition, SMEs cannot always benefit from such markings, creating a distortion among market players and potentially hindering market access. Those additional markings should therefore not be affixed to the products in combination with the CE marking. However, this prohibition does not prevent products which bear other markings from being placed on the single market, providing such markings do not mislead the consumer or create confusion with the CE marking. In addition, the markings should not impair the visibility, legibility or meaning of the CE marking. As such, these markings should not display any information, text or claims in relation to the product’s performance.(45)To avoid misleading claims, any claims made by manufacturers of construction products should be based on an assessment method contained in harmonised technical specifications where available.(46)Technical documentation about construction products, drawn up by the manufacturer, facilitates the verification of those products by competent national authorities and notified bodies against the Union requirements. To enhance access to comprehensive information, that technical documentation should include the necessary information to validate the calculation substantiating the assessment of the environmental sustainability of the construction product.(47)To create transparency for users of construction products and to avoid inappropriate use of those products, construction products and their intended use should be precisely identified by the manufacturer. For the same reason, the manufacturer should make clear whether the construction products are intended for professional use. To ensure that construction products can be traced back, manufacturers should indicate manufacturer-specific unique identification code of the product type on the product or, where this is not possible e.g. due to the product’s size or surface, on an affixed label, on the packaging or, where that is not possible either, in a document accompanying the product.(48)To ensure that requirements of this Regulation are fulfilled, manufacturers should actively search, store and evaluate information and take appropriate measures where non-conformity or under-performance has been confirmed or where there is a risk.(49)To achieve the goals of the European Green Deal and of the Circular Economy Action Plan, the Commission should have the possibility to specify minimum threshold levels for the environmental performance of construction products and product environmental requirements preventing and reducing the impact that construction products have on the environment. However, the "safety first" principle, applicable both for the construction product and the construction works, should in all instances be respected, and should encompass the protection of health.(50)With the goals of ensuring sustainability and durability of construction products, manufacturers should ensure that products can be used for as long as possible. Such long use requires adequate design, use of reliable parts, reparability of products, availability of information on repair and access to spare parts. In the event that the spare parts are not commonly available in the market, the Commission should be empowered to require from the manufacturer to ensure the availability of these spare parts at a reasonable and non-discriminatory price for a period of 10 years which may be extended if the availability for a longer period of time is expected to increase the life span of the product.(51)In view of enhancing the circularity of construction products, in line with the goals of the Circular Economy Action Plan and the waste hierarchy, product requirements should also be able to improve resource efficiency, prevent waste generation, prioritise repair, reuse and remanufacturing, favour the use of secondary materials and address the recyclability of the product and the production of by-products. Preparing for reuse, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling require certain design, namely by facilitating the separation of products, components and materials at deinstallation, deconstruction and demolition and at the later stage of recycling and, when possible, avoiding mixed, blended or intricate materials and substances of concern. As the usual instructions for use and safety information will not necessarily reach the economic operators in charge of preparing for reuse, reuse, remanufacturing and recycling, the necessary information in this regard should be made available in digital product passports accessible through data carriers and in manufacturer’s websites.(52)General product information, instructions for use and safety information are a vital tool to provide information that is sufficient to make knowledgeable decisions on purchase, installation, use, maintenance, dismantling, reuse and recycling of the product to a wide group in potential need of the information. Elements to be covered by the general product information, instructions for use and safety information should therefore be specified in this Regulation and guidance on how to typically cover these elements in relation to a certain product should be possible to include in performance harmonised standards. Such guidance should however not expand or restrict the responsibility for the manufacturer to provide information as set out in the Regulation. The Commission should be empowered to adopt delegated acts to ensure adequate and homogeneous implementation of the obligation to provide the general product information, instructions for use and safety information for specific product families or product categories when performance harmonised standards are not able to do it.(53)Some construction products become waste though they were never used. To avoid this waste of resources, the Regulation should not affect the possibility for Member States to oblige manufacturers to accept to regain, directly or via their importers and distributors, ownership of products that, after delivery onto a construction site or to the user, have not been used and are in a state equivalent to the one in which they were placed on the market.(54)In order to be able to make informed choices, users of construction products should be sufficiently well informed about the environmental performances of products, about their conformity with environmental requirements and of the degree of fulfilment of manufacturer’s environmental obligations in this regard. Therefore, the Commission is empowered to adopt delegated acts to establish specific labelling requirements.(55)The authorised representatives are often the only reachable persons in the case of imported products whilst manufacturers often attribute to them very limited tasks and do not provide them with all the necessary information to effectively represent the manufacturers. Hence, the role and responsibilities of authorised representatives should be strengthened and clearly set out in this Regulation, such as the tasks to be included in the mandate of the manufacturer. The mandate of the authorised representative should not include the drawing up of technical documentation. Nevertheless, manufacturers should be allowed to establish a separate contract with its authorised representative for this purpose, outside the scope of the mandate.(56)There should be always a manufacturer when the Regulation establishes obligations as regards the placing of a product on the market. When there is otherwise no manufacturer in the meaning of this Regulation, the distributor or importer should act as manufacturer and assume its responsibilities.(57)An economic operator who modifies a product or stores it in such a way that its performance or safety might be affected should be subject to the obligations of manufacturers, to ensure the verification whether performance or safety of the product are still the same. However, this obligation should not be imposed on an economic operator who repackages products, as otherwise secondary trade and thus free circulation of products would be hampered and repackaging in principle should not affect the performance or safety of the construction product. Still, and with the aim to preserve the performance and safety of products, the economic operator undertaking the repackaging should be responsible for the correct execution of these operations to ensure that the product is not damaged and that the users are still correctly informed in the language set out by the Member State where the products are made available.(58)Given its environmental effects, the calculation of the environmental sustainability of a construction product should also cover the packaging used or most likely to be used. The packaging of a product can also be vital to preserve its performance through the distribution chain to the user. Even though the packaging in itself is not included in other assessments of a product’s performance, all economic operators should, as part of their obligation to take necessary measures to ensure continued compliance of products with this Regulation, be responsible for using packaging suitable for preserving the performance and the compliance with the products’ requirements. The packaging could in itself pose a risk for users and the obligation to provide information on risks relating to the use of the product should take this into account.(59)In order to increase compliance of manufacturers with the obligations under this Regulation and to contribute to addressing the identified shortcomings and improve the market surveillance, fulfilment service providers, online market places and other market actors should actively contribute to ensuring that only compliant products reach the users.(60)To avoid circumvention of the obligations under this Regulation when the production technology involves several different actors who contribute to the design and manufacture of a construction product, it is necessary to establish a clearly defined manufacturer’s role where the natural or legal person who does the actual production of a construction product assumes the responsibilities under this Regulation in respect of the entire product, unless there is another person who either places the product on the market under his or her name or trademark, or assumes responsibility for the product by drawing up a declaration of performance and conformity. This is of particular importance in relation to 3D-printing, whereby a natural or legal person 3D-prints construction products and places them on the market. That person should fulfil the obligations incumbent on manufacturers including as regards the use of appropriate 3D-datasets and of materials which have undergone the procedures applicable to products as well as with regard to the correspondence of the information to be provided by the manufacturer of the 3D-dataset with the information to be provided by the manufacturer of the printing material.(61)In cases when the product is not intended to be used for construction but its appearance is likely to lead consumers to use the product in construction, the product is accompanied by instructions for use and safety information pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2023/988 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) 2023/988 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 10 May 2023 on general product safety, amending Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council and Directive (EU) 2020/1828 of the European Parliament and the Council, and repealing Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and Council Directive 87/357/EEC (OJ L 135, 23.5.2023, p. 1). or another applicable regulation indicating that despite its appearance it was not designed as a construction product. Market surveillance authorities are to take the appropriate measures, including the possibility to withdraw the product from the market, if its appearance could lead to confusion for the consumer or to misuse.(62)To clarify the applicability of this Regulation to online and other distance sales, it should be defined under which conditions a certain product is deemed to be offered to clients in the Union. As online trade has a higher likelihood of non-compliance, Member States should make a special effort to designate a single market surveillance authority for detecting distance sales offers targeting clients on their territory, so that the responsible market surveillance authorities can take appropriate measures. Offers using the currency of the Member States, available through an internet domain name which is registered in one of the Member States or which refers to the Union or one of the Member States, and dispatched to any Member State, should be considered targeted at customers in the Union. Other elements such as using an official language of a Member State may also be considered as an indication by market surveillance authorities as to whether the offer targets customers in the Union.(63)Digital technologies, which provide a significant potential for reducing administrative burden and costs for economic operators and authorities, while also fostering innovative and new business opportunities and models, are evolving at rapid pace. The uptake of digital technologies will also contribute significantly towards achieving the objectives of the Renovation Wave, including energy efficiency, life cycle assessments and monitoring and of the building stock.(64)In order to ensure a timely adoption of harmonised standards and European assessment documents, the Commission should have the possibility to make them mandatory with restrictions of their legal effects under this Regulation. It should be possible for such restrictions to cover, for example, outdated references to other standards or documents, provisions which contradict this Regulation or other Union law, provisions which contradict other harmonised standards, or provisions which are not in conformity with the demands to be met in relation to the basic principles and reference points set out in a standardisation request.(65)To ensure the coherence of the system, this Regulation should build on the horizontal legal framework for standardisation. Hence, Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 should also apply to the extent possible to standards made mandatory in accordance with this Regulation. Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 is thus to provide, among others, for a procedure for objections to harmonised standards where those standards do not entirely conform with applicable legal requirements or satisfy the requirements set out in the relevant standardisation request or other requirements of this Regulation.(66)The Commission should support European standardisation organisations in developing guidelines laying down a set of clear and stable rules for the whole standardisation process, including roles, responsibilities, competences and the general procedural deadlines for all stakeholders involved, as well as templates to be used. The Commission should also provide support to ensure the coherence and compliance of standards with legal requirements and should participate in the informal and formal discussions of European standardisation organisations developing the requested European standardisation deliverables, in particular on matters concerning the compliance of the standardisation deliverables with this Regulation and with other Union law. Those activities should benefit from the horizontal work developed in the context of the implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012.(67)When the Commission endorses by means of delegated acts proposals of European standardisation organisations related to voluntary or mandatory threshold levels and classes of performance in relation to the essential characteristics and those essential characteristics which always have to be declared by manufacturers, they should be accompanied by an impact assessment where required in accordance with the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-MakingOJ L 123, 12.5.2016, p. 1..(68)As they are not acts of general applicability but the first step of a two-step administrative procedure leading to the CE marking, European assessment documents should not qualify as harmonised technical specifications. However, basic principles of the elaboration of harmonised standards, such as transparency for competitors, can and should also apply to European assessment documents. Moreover, the European assessment documents should be referred to in the process of assessment and verification in the same way as harmonised standards. To create transparency for competitors, European assessment documents should be made publicly available and the references of all European assessment documents should be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.(69)Currently, the increasing number of hardly distinguishable European assessment documents which often have little added value when compared to others or existing harmonised standards, risks to slow down their publication. In order to deal with this risk in a cost-effective way, certain principles for the development and adoption of European assessment documents should be established or be made more concrete. Moreover, the control by the Commission should be enhanced.(70)Where the organisation of technical assessment bodies (TABs) considers the development of a European assessment document to be useful even without any demand from a manufacturer, the organisation of TABs should bring the issue to the attention of the Commission who should decide on requesting the development of the European assessment document taking into consideration the justification provided by the organisation of TABs and the market needs.(71)The requirements applicable to designating authorities of TABs should not fall behind those applicable to notifying authorities given the similarities between their respective roles. For the same reason, TABs should have the same degree of independence and control of decision-making as notified bodies.(72)In order to respond to a noteworthy percentage of notifications which were based on incomplete or erroneous assessments, in particular where legal bodies without own in-house technical competence were notified, it is necessary to make requirements for notified bodies more precise, namely with regard to their independence, delegation to other legal entities and own ability to perform; to require sufficient adequate qualified staffing of notified bodies and to verify the adequacy of the staffing, for which a qualification matrix can be an efficient tool; to ensure and verify that the notified body is effectively in control of staffing, attribution of external experts, procedures, criteria and decision-making, and not a subcontractor, subsidiary or another company belonging to the same family of companies; and to enlarge the documentation to be provided by bodies when applying for designation as notified body so as to provide a deeper and comparatively fairer basis for decision to notifying authorities.(73)In order to ensure the correct implementation of this Regulation, it is necessary to ensure that accreditation bodies take as a basis for accreditation this Regulation and not deviating standards. It is also important to ensure that the accreditation bodies assess the ability of the applicant body and not of a group of companies, as it is the applicant body itself that must be in control of future certification.(74)To reach a level playing field and to avoid legal uncertainty, the obligations of notified bodies should be more clearly defined and rendered explicit, and this both for their assessment and verification activities and the related aspects.(75)In order to avoid involvement between notified bodies’ staff and the manufacturers, it should be possible for the notified bodies to allow rotation between the personnel carrying out different conformity assessment tasks.(76)Authorities of Member States might have questions that only a certain notified body can answer. Notified bodies should thus respond also to the questions authorities of other Member States may have.(77)To enable authorities to more easily identify instances of non-compliance by notified bodies, manufacturers and products, and to ensure a level playing field, notified bodies should be empowered, and where the non-compliance can be clearly demonstrated even obliged to, proactively forward information on instances of non-compliance to relevant competent national authorities or notifying authorities. Notified bodies should however not trespass the information obligation by investigating other operators than their own clients or peers.(78)With a view to creating a level playing field for notified bodies and manufacturers, the coordination amongst notified bodies should be enhanced. As only half of the current notified bodies participate on their own initiative in the activities of the already currently existing notified body coordination group, direct participation or by means of designated representatives thereto should thus become mandatory.(79)The attempts of establishing simplified procedures for small and medium-sized enterprises in Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and thus reducing the burden and costs on SMEs and microenterprises have not been entirely effective and have often remained misunderstood or not used due to the lack of awareness or the lack of clarity regarding their application. By addressing the identified shortcomings while building on the previously established rules, it is necessary to clarify and facilitate their application and hence achieve the objective of supporting SMEs while ensuring performance, safety and environmental sustainability of construction products.(80)The recognition of test results obtained by another manufacturer, provided for in Article 36(1), point (b), of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, should be generalised, in order to generally reduce the burden of economic operators and namely manufacturers. Such recognition mechanism is particularly needed to avoid multiple assessment of environmental sustainability of raw materials, interim products and final products.(81)To ensure legal certainty in the event of safety or performance problems, such recognition should only be permitted where the assessed and verified economic operators agree to cooperate between themselves and with the notified bodies involved, including the necessary sharing of data.(82)The evaluation of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 showed that market surveillance activities carried out at national level, widely vary in quality and effectiveness. In addition to measures set out in this Regulation and under relevant Union law in favour of better market surveillance, the compliance of economic operators, bodies and products with this Regulation should be facilitated by also involving third parties such as by the possibility of any natural or legal person to submit information on instances of non-compliance through a complaint portal established and maintained by the Commission. The handling of complaints adheres to the right to good administration, as outlined in Article 41 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. In handling the complaints the Commission should take into account the relevance and substantiation of the complaint by prioritising those complaints raising issues having particularly far-reaching negative impacts for citizens or the internal market. For a complaint to be considered substantiated the Commission should particularly check if the complaint manages to set out a grievance or if the grievance sets out an issue where the Commission has adopted a clear, public and consistent position which has been communicated to the complainant. The Commission should reply to the complainant without undue delay and efficiently transmit the complaints to the relevant Member States who should handle these complaints promptly and effectively in accordance with their legal frameworks and obligations.(83)To address the identified shortcomings with regards to the market surveillance under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011, this Regulation should contain more justified empowerments for market surveillance authorities and for the Commission that should enable authorities to act under all potential problematic circumstances.(84)Market surveillance practice has proved that when evaluating products, at a certain point in time, there is a risk of non-compliance but no non-compliance incidence whereas, at a later point in time, the opposite is to be stated. Moreover, there are situations where there is a non-compliance other than a formal one that does not trigger a risk. For these reasons, Member States should be empowered to act in all cases of suspected non-compliance or risk, whilst the definition of "product presenting a risk" has to be extended to include risk for the environment. It is necessary to offer Member States enough procedural flexibility to distinguish between high and low priority cases of non-compliance, whilst all Member States should also be informed about less important cases.(85)To ensure effective enforcement of the requirements and to strengthen market surveillance in Member States the Commission should issue guidelines for the application of this Regulation, as well as common practices and methodologies for effective market surveillance, including, for example, elements such as a recommended number and type of checks to be performed by the market surveillance authorities on specific product category or family or in relation to specific requirements. It is appropriate that such recommendations be based on good practices developed in the framework of market surveillance.(86)In addition, to strengthen the on average weak capacities of market surveillance authorities in terms of market surveillance and to further align with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, it is necessary to provide more detailed administrative coordination support and to provide them with the right to retrieve costs of inspections and testing from economic operators in relation to non-compliant products.(87)To create an incentive for increasing the capacities of market surveillance authorities in terms of market surveillance and to reach alignment with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, Member States should report on their market surveillance activities regarding products covered by this Regulation, including regarding the penalties imposed.(88)To better serve economic operators, product contact points for construction should become more effective and therefore should obtain more resources. In order to facilitate the work of economic operators, the tasks of product contact points for construction should be fine-tuned and extended so as to include information on product related provisions of this Regulation and on acts adopted in accordance with it. Member States should also raise economic operators’ awareness of the product contact points for construction within their territory.(89)It is necessary to establish an appropriate, efficient and cost-effective coordination mechanism to ensure a consistent application of the obligations and requirements set and to strengthen the overall system, also taking into consideration the fact that new interpretative questions may arise in relation to safety and sustainability of products and construction works. As diverging decisions create an uneven playing field, contribute to rendering the legal framework more complex, create barriers to the free movement of the internal market and additional administrative burden and costs on economic operators, such diverging decisions should be prevented by that coordination mechanism.(90)In particular, an information and communication system should therefore be established to collect questions related to interpretation, to find appropriate common solutions and to improve the sharing of information in this regard. To facilitate information sharing, such a system should rely on national systems. Those national systems should also identify cases of uneven application of this Regulation, to ensure that diverging practices do not become a common practice and permanent. The information and communication system should also deal with issues raised related to the emergence of new products or business models, unforeseen situations and to situations in which other provisions of Union law also apply.(91)Digitalisation and availability of product information increases transparency to the benefit of safety of products and the protection of the environment and health of persons while also reducing administrative burden and costs for economic operators. Accordingly, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission to establish a construction digital product passport system aligned to the extent possible to the digital product passport under Regulation (EU) 2024/1781.(92)To improve machine readability, it is necessary to establish a common data dictionary based on European standards, a tool to govern and publish the data structure and their meaningful definitions and descriptions for all relevant construction products. For each product family or product category, the data dictionary should include all the essential characteristics and other properties as set out in the harmonised technical specifications as well as other information required by this Regulation. A data dictionary harmonised at the Union level allows for the classification and use of structured definitions by both competent national authorities and in the further digitalisation of the construction sector, in particular in Building Information Modelling, building logbooks, digital passports and registries.(93)To improve their level of competence, harmonise their decision-making and create a level playing field for economic operators, trainings should be organised for market surveillance authorities, product contact points for construction, designating authorities, notifying authorities, and representatives of notified bodies and TABs. The same goals should also be pursued by exchanges of staff between the market surveillance authorities, notifying authorities and notified bodies of two or more Member States.(94)Member States do not always have the technical competence to fulfil all obligations incumbent on them in accordance with Union legislation cumulatively for all product sectors. They therefore obtain informal support, from other Member States. Since such support is unavoidable in some cases, this Regulation should set out the basic rules for such support, namely to clarify responsibilities.(95)Business on construction products becomes slowly but steadily more and more international. Hence, situations arise where non-compliance by economic operators based outside the Union need to be countered as well. Provisions on international cooperation should therefore be provided for in this Regulation.(96)A certain number of third countries applies Union product legislation or at least recognises certificates issued in accordance with it, be it on the basis of international agreements or unilaterally, both being in the interest of the Union. In order to give these third countries an incentive to continue this practice and other third countries to do the same, certain additional possibilities should be provided, on a case-by-case basis, to third countries applying Union product legislation or recognising certificates issued in accordance with it. For this reason, it should be possible, after consultation with Member States, to support these particularly cooperative third countries by allowing them to participate in certain trainings and to participate in the construction digital product passport system, to the information system for harmonised decision-making and to the information exchange amongst authorities. Moreover, for the same reason, it should be possible to inform these particularly cooperative third countries about non-compliant or risky products.(97)In order to incentivise the use of sustainable construction products whilst avoiding market distortions and to remain in line with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, incentives for the use of sustainable construction products provided by Member States should target the most sustainable products. The Commission should furthermore have the possibility to coordinate Member States incentives in order to boost the demand of certain environmentally sustainable products. Member States might also provide incentives to promote environmentally friendly and sustainable construction products that are not covered by harmonised technical specifications in line with State aid rules.(98)Public procurement amounts to 14 % of Union’s GDP. In order to enhance the use of sustainable construction products, which would contribute to the objective of reaching climate neutrality, improve energy and resource efficiency and in the transition to a circular economy that protects public health and biodiversity and to reach alignment with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781, the public procurement practices of the Member States should comply with mandatory minimum performance requirements on environmental sustainability for construction products set out by delegated acts. The Commission should decide the essential characteristics to be addressed and its implementation in the form of one or more of the following: technical specifications, selection criteria, contract performance clauses or contract award criteria. The mandatory minimum performance requirements on environmental sustainability deal with essential characteristics only and do not pre-empt the possibility for Member States to be more ambitious in their contracts by requesting better performances for the relevant essential characteristics while respecting the harmonised zone.(99)Contracting authorities and contracting entities should, where appropriate, be required to align their procurement with specific green public procurement criteria, to be set out in the delegated acts referred to in this Regulation. The criteria for specific product families or product categories should be complied with where contracts require mandatory minimum environmental sustainability performance for construction products as regards their essential characteristics covered by harmonised technical specifications. Those minimum requirements should be established in accordance with transparent, objective and non-discriminatory criteria. When developing delegated acts related to green public procurement, the Commission should take due account of the Member States different geographical, social and economic circumstances. When considering the effect on the market situation, the Commission should take into account, among others, the effects of the requirements on competition, SMEs and the best environmental products and solutions available on the market. When considering the economic feasibility for contracting authorities and contracting entities, the Commission should take into account that different contracting authorities in different Member States might have different budgetary capacities. In duly justified cases, contracting authorities should be able to derogate from the requirements such as when there is only one supplier, there are no suitable tenders or its application would lead to a disproportionate cost.(100)In order to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market in the event of an internal market emergency as referred to in Regulation (EU) 2024/2748 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) 2024/2748 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 October 2024 amending Regulations (EU) No 305/2011, (EU) 2016/424, (EU) 2016/425, (EU) 2016/426, (EU) 2023/988 and (EU) 2023/1230 as regards emergency procedures for the conformity assessment, presumption of conformity, adoption of common specifications and market surveillance due to an internal market emergency (OJ L, 2024/2748, 8.11.2024, ELI: http://data.europa.eu/eli/reg/2024/2748/oj)., for the reasons set out in that Regulation, it is necessary to provide for rules on construction products designated as crisis-relevant goods, prioritisation of the assessment and verification of those products, assessment and declaration of performance based on standards and common specifications as well as on prioritisation of market surveillance activities and mutual assistance among authorities, in the case of an active internal market emergency mode under that Regulation.(101)In order to take into account technical progress and knowledge of new scientific evidence, ensure proper functioning of the internal market, facilitate access to information and ensure homogeneous implementation of rules, the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission in respect of amending Annexes II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, IX and X and amending this Regulation to further specify, add and remove certain functionalities and revise certain provisions with a view to ensuring compatibility and interoperability with Regulation (EU) 2024/1781. For the same reasons the power to adopt acts in accordance with Article 290 TFEU should be delegated to the Commission to supplement this Regulation by: determining voluntary or mandatory threshold levels in relation to the essential characteristics, classes of performance in relation to the essential characteristics, and the essential characteristics which always have to be declared by manufacturers; determining elements of standardisation requests and conditions under which a product is to be deemed to satisfy a certain level or threshold level or to qualify for a class of performance without testing or without further testing; establishing product requirements in accordance with Annex III; establishing rules on the provision of general product information, instructions for use and safety information for the respective product family or product category; determining, for each product family or product category, the applicable assessment and verification system among those set out in Annex IX; laying down conditions under which obligations relating to the assessment of a product’s performance or the fulfilment of certain product requirements can be satisfied by the fulfilment of obligations under other Union legal acts; imposing in respect of certain product families and product categories an obligation on manufacturers to make available on the market specific spare parts not commonly available for the products they place on the market; establishing specific environmental sustainability labelling requirements for particular product families and product categories; setting up a construction digital product passport system; and by specifying mandatory minimum environmental sustainability requirements for construction products. It is of particular importance that the Commission carry out appropriate consultations during its preparatory work, including at expert level, and that those consultations be conducted in accordance with the principles laid down in the Interinstitutional Agreement of 13 April 2016 on Better Law-Making. In particular, to ensure equal participation in the preparation of delegated acts, the European Parliament and the Council receive all documents at the same time as Member States’ experts, and their experts systematically have access to meetings of Commission expert groups dealing with the preparation of delegated acts. When developing those acts, the Commission should aim at reducing the administrative burden for companies and take into account the needs of SMEs.(102)In order to ensure uniform conditions for the implementation of this Regulation, implementing powers should be conferred on the Commission. Those powers should be exercised in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) No 182/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 2011 laying down the rules and general principles concerning mechanisms for control by Member States of the Commission’s exercise of implementing powers (OJ L 55, 28.2.2011, p. 13)..(103)The Commission should adopt immediately applicable implementing acts where, in duly justified cases relating to health and safety of persons or the protection of the environment, imperative grounds of urgency so require.(104)Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 lays down rules on a horizontal framework for market surveillance and control of products entering the Union market. In order to ensure that products under this Regulation, which are benefiting from the free movement of goods within the Union, fulfil requirements providing a high level of protection of public interests, such as the protection of health and safety of persons and the protection of the environment, that Regulation should apply also to products covered by this Regulation, in so far as there are no specific provisions with the same objective, nature or effect in this Regulation.(105)To render the implementation of this Regulation more efficient and to reduce the burden for economic operators, it should be possible to make applications and decisions on paper or in a commonly used electronic format. To obtain legal certainty, applications and decisions should only be valid where the electronic signature fulfils the requirements of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilRegulation (EU) No 910/2014 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 July 2014 on electronic identification and trust services for electronic transactions in the internal market and repealing Directive 1999/93/EC (OJ L 257, 28.8.2014, p. 73). and where the signing person is entrusted to represent the body or economic operator, in accordance with the law of the Member States or Union law respectively.(106)To further reduce the burden on economic operators, it should be possible to provide documentation in a commonly used electronic format, and to fulfil information requirements electronically by default.(107)In order to ensure a high level of compliance with this Regulation, Member States should lay down rules on penalties applicable to instances of non-compliance and ensure that those rules are enforced. The penalties provided for should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive.(108)In order to create legal certainty, it should be specified whether and for how long designations of product contact points for construction, TABs, or notified bodies and harmonised standards, European assessment documents, European technical assessments and notified bodies certificates or test reports adopted or issued under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 maintain legal effects under this Regulation. The respective transitional periods should be long enough to avoid bottlenecks in respect of notified bodies and TABs designation and of the adoption or issuing of European assessment documents, European technical assessments, and notified body certificates or test reports.(109)To create legal certainty, it should be clarified for how long products placed on the market on the basis of European technical assessments issued in accordance with European assessment documents adopted under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 may be placed on the market.(110)Both the essential characteristics of construction products and their assessment methods can only be determined by harmonised technical specifications to be developed for the various product families and product categories, or by European assessment documents. Accordingly, requirements and obligations incumbent on economic operators with regard to a certain product family or product category should only apply mandatorily as of 12 months after the entry into force of harmonised technical specification covering the respective product family or product category unless a later application date has been specified in the publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.(111)To facilitate a smooth phasing-in of future harmonised technical specifications and taking into consideration the time needed for drawing up the declaration of performance and conformity, economic operators should be permitted to opt for the voluntary application of this Regulation as from the entry into force of these harmonised technical specifications.(112)It is necessary to avoid that economic operators can permanently circumvent the application of this Regulation by applying the harmonised technical specifications adopted under Regulation (EU) No 305/2011. For this reason, the Commission should withdraw from the Official Journal of the European Union the references to harmonised standards and European assessment documents published in support of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and covering a certain product family or product category by the entry into application of harmonised technical specification adopted under this Regulation covering that respective product family or product category.(113)While the concept of basic requirements for construction works is kept as the technically necessary link between construction works and construction products, it should be made explicit that they do not constitute obligations incumbent upon economic operators or Member States seeing as the right to regulate construction works is a competence of Member States. In order to cover the environmental assessment of construction products as well as product requirements which exist even in current harmonised technical specifications, a more comprehensive Annex I should be developed, including also a detailed list of predetermined environmental essential characteristics related to life cycle assessment and a framework for the product requirements. On that occasion, overlaps between basic requirements for construction works should be eliminated and clarifications should be brought forward.(114)In order to reach a minimum control intensity of the assessment and verification of manufacturers by notified bodies and to create a level playing field both for manufacturers and notified bodies, Annex IX on assessment and verification systems should more precisely and comprehensively determine the tasks of manufacturers and notified bodies under different possible assessment and verification systems. Moreover, that Annex should determine the assessments and verifications to be undertaken to verify the environmental sustainability of products, in terms of product performance and product requirements. When the Commission defines the applicable assessment and verification system for a product family or product category, continuity with Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 and coherence across product families should be the guiding principles.(115)Since the objectives of this Regulation, namely to ensure the free movement of safe and sustainable construction products in the internal market, to contribute to the green and digital transition and to protect health and safety of persons and the environment, cannot be sufficiently achieved by the Member States, as Member States tend to establish very diverging requirements for construction products, with an uneven level of protection of health and safety of persons and of the environment, but can rather be better achieved at Union level by establishing a harmonised assessment framework for the performance of construction products and certain product requirements for the protection of health and safety of persons and of the environment, the Union may adopt measures, in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 TEU. In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Regulation does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives,HAVE ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: