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RoHS in the EU

1.      TAC Meetings

At EU level, the Technical Adaptation Committee (TAC), chaired by the European Commission and comprising of Member State representatives, considers follow up issues for the RoHS Directive.

The last meeting was held on 10 April 2008: the next meeting is likely to be held in September 2008. The latest TAC meeting notes can be found by following the link below.

Unofficial note of the Technical Adaption Committee on the WEEE and the RoHS Directives: 10 April 2008 (79KB)

2.      European Commission FAQ’s

The European Commission has issued non-legally binding guidance in the form of a Frequently Asked Questions document. This was last updated in August 2006.

European Commission FAQ's Document

3.      Exemptions

Article 5 of the RoHS Directive sets out the process for exemptions to be granted on the grounds of technical or scientific impracticability. Exemptions are for specific applications of the restricted substances and once agreed through a vote in the TAC followed by publication of a Commission Decision apply to everyone: there is no requirement to register.

The European Commission has put each batch of exemption requests to public consultation and contracted independent technical consultants to make recommendations. Details of those consultations are available via the Commission's website, under 'events'.

The Directive and Decisions can be found under Documents

4.      Categories 8 & 9

Medical devices (Category 8) and monitoring & control instruments (Category 9) are currently excluded from the scope of the Directive; however the Directive includes an obligation for the European Commission to review the possibility of bringing the two categories into scope. The Commission appointed independent technical consultants to conduct a study on whether the two categories should be included; this report has now been completed. 

The Commission invited stakeholders to propose additional topics that the review should consider or additional elements that stakeholders consider relevant within each topic. This section of the review is now complete. The Commission are expected to submit proposals to The Council and European Parliament at the beginning of 2008. If the Commission decide to bring forward the proposal it not likely these measures will come into force until 2010 at the earliest.

5.      A report on other Member States’ preparations for WEEE and RoHS. Now that the RoHS Directive has been transposed by all Member States we do not anticipate any further issues of the report for RoHS.

Transposition of the WEEE and RoHS directives in other EU member states: November 2005. (1338KB)