Joint industry statement on MR requirements

Various industry interest groups have signed a position paper requesting a postponement of the mandatory implementation of certain provisions of the new Machinery Regulation.

There is concern within the industry that certain health and safety requirements could be interpreted and applied differently, as they must be harmonised with other new regulations. In particular, the new Cyber Resilience Act (CRA) and the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) are mentioned here.

The signatories are CECE, the European Construction Equipment Manufacturers' Association, CECIMO, the European Association of Machine Tool Manufacturers, EGMF, the European Garden and Motorised Equipment Manufacturers' Association, and FEM, the European Federation of Material Handling and Material Flow Technology.
 

On the one hand, numbers 5 and 6 of Annex I, Part A (categories of machinery or related products to which one of the procedures referred to in Article 25(2) and (3) shall be applied) are affected. These read in detail:

5. Safety components with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions.
6. Machinery that has embedded systems with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour using machine learning approaches ensuring safety functions that have not been placed independently on the market, in respect only of those systems.

According to industry representatives, it has not yet been finally clarified what this means, which is likely to lead to uncertainty in the selection of security architectures and software design. In addition, the requirements for high-risk machines under Annex I of the MR are also specified in the scope of the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act). The EU Commission has launched a targeted consultation with stakeholders, and the results of this consultation are also likely to have an impact on the interpretation of Annex I of the MR.

In addition, two requirements from Annex III of the Machinery Regulation (Essential Health and Safety Requirements) are specifically affected.

1.1.9. Protection against corruption
The machinery or related product shall be designed and constructed so that the connection to it of another device, via any feature of the connected device itself or via any remote device that communicates with the machinery or related product does not lead to a hazardous situation (...).

1.2.1. Safety and reliability of control systems
f) Control systems of machinery or related products with fully or partially self-evolving behaviour or logic that are designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy (...).

Here, the representatives point out that, despite existing international standards, the state of the art in the field of cybersecurity is still under development, and many future harmonised standards will probably not be published until 2026. This also affects the planned prEN 50742 standard (protection against corruption), which makes it difficult for manufacturers to implement the relevant requirements in time for the currently specified start date of the MR on 20 January 2027.
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For the requirements set out in Annex III (protection against corruption, 1.1.9. and safety and reliability of control systems, 1.2.1.,f), the date of mandatory application is to be aligned with the Cyber Resilience Act (EU) 2024/2847. This is set for 11 December 2027 and would thus take place just under 10 months after the deadline for the application of the Machinery Regulation. This would avoid duplication of work, simplify processes and reduce costs.

In the case of the MR requirements for AI provisions, a postponement of at least 24 months is even requested, namely after completion of the final interpretation work in the official guidance for the application of the Machinery Regulation.