CE marking
 |
The CE mark is a declaration on certain products, which is required if they are sold in the European Economic Area (EEA), Turkey, and possibly Switzerland, that the item meets all the requirements of relevant EU directives. For example, the EU Directive concerning Liability for Defective Products makes EU importers liable for the products they import, including the machinery they provide to their employees for work.
Officially, CE has no meaning as an abbreviation [1] but may have originally stood for Communauté Européenne or Conformité Européenne.
It is mandatory that all regulated products carry such a mark. To permit the use of a CE mark on a product, proof that the item meets the relevant requirements must be documented. Sometimes this is achieved using an external test house which evaluates the product and its documentation. Often it is achieved by a company-internal self certification process. Directives providing the requirements for the CE mark are created by the European Union (EU), but the markings are required throughout the European Economic Area (EEA), which also includes the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, and in Turkey, which is not a part of the EU or the EFTA. (Switzerland is the only nation that is part of the EFTA (or the EU), but not the EEA, and sources differ on whether the CE mark is required there.)
The mark has been designed by Arthur Eisenmenger [2]
See also
- International Organization for Standardization (ISO)
- International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
- Underwriters Laboratories (UL)—A United States equivalent of the CE mark