Carlo Belletti

Preview – This article appears in Elevatori Magazine no. 5/2024 and is available online in its full version

In the summer of 2024, CEN approved the revisions to EN 81-31 and EN 81-41.
Here are the highlights.

APPROVAL OF THE EN 81-31 REVISION

Last August, CEN members voted on the 2024 revision of EN 81-31:2010 ‘Accessible goods only lifts’ which was approved with 18 votes in favour, 0 votes against, and 13 abstentions (which in CEN accounting is called 100% approval).

The Standard has received editorial comments from Austria and Germany, which must be applied to the text prior to its publication by CEN, scheduled for the end of 2024. The Standard will then be submitted to the European Commission to be cited in the Official Journal of the European Union, thus obtaining the presumption of conformity with the requirements of Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC.

APPROVAL OF THE EN 81-41 REVISION

Also in August, CEN members voted to approve the 2024 revision of the EN81-41:2010 Standard ‘Vertical lifting platforms intended for use by persons with impaired mobility’ obtaining 16 votes in favour, 0 against, and 14 abstentions (which in CEN accounting is called 100% approval).

The Standard has received editorial comments from Austria, Italy and Poland, which must be applied to the text prior to its publication by CEN, scheduled for the end of 2024. The Standard will then be submitted to the European Commission to be cited in the Official Journal of the European Union, thus obtaining the presumption of conformity with the requirements of Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC. This is a great achievement of the CEN/TC10/WG8 working group, given the vicissitudes of this revision.

The 2017 draft had not even been put to the vote, given the initial opposition of 13 CEN members and the observations of the Austrian Ministry (in its role as market surveillance authority) regarding the 2010 edition, not addressed in the 2017 revision concerning the hold-to-run operation of partially open carriers (requirements 6.2 and 6.4.2 of Annex I of 2006/42/EC), proposing again the need to check the presence of persons in or on the carrier.
Likewise, the next draft in 2018 was not put to the vote, due to the opposition of 4 CEN members.
The 2021 revision just scraped through the formal vote, obtaining 66.5% of the weighted votes (minimum 65%), with France and Germany voting against.

Given the weak result and the technical comments received (which the formal vote would not allow), in December 2021, CEN’s Bureau Tecnique approved two changes related to obvious errors, to be made to the text before publication. But things took longer than expected and in April 2023 the European Commissionʼs consultant for harmonised standards (HAS consultant) performed a new assessment of the 2021 revision, with a negative outcome.
Therefore, in July 2023, the CEN members unanimously called for a second formal vote, cancelling the result of the first. This was the first case of voting being annulled and then recast.
The 2024 revision performed by WG8 took into account the comments already received during the first formal vote plus those of the HAS consultant. The second formal vote obtained 100% approval.

Congratulations to the CEN/TC10/WG13 (which dealt with EN 81-31) and CEN/TC10/ WG8 (which dealt with EN 81-41) Working Groups for all the work done.