Sophia Antipolis, 13 June 2017

Today, the new Radio Equipment Directive becomes mandatory and the R&TTE Directive can no longer be used to access the European market.

This major update of Europe’s single market rules for radio equipment was published in May 2014. ETSI’s Harmonised European Standards, developed in support of the Directive, are the preferred means for manufacturers to comply with the regulation. Equipment which complies with the Harmonised Standards for this Directive is presumed to comply with the requirements of the Directive. To date, 140 ETSI harmonised standards have been cited in the Official Journal of the European Union, covering most types of radio equipment.

The field of application of this Directive covers a large scope of equipment, ranging from satellite communications to radars to mobile phones, to products operating below 9 kHz such as telecoil hearing aids and sound and TV broadcast receivers. Further examples of equipment covered by the Directive include combinations of multiple radio products in one radio equipment, combinations of radio and IT or electro-technical equipment, RLAN enabled domestic appliances, radio controlled heating systems, radio controlled lighting systems, products including GPS, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc.

ETSI’s Harmonised European Standards are developed by our members in our technical committees, with much of the work being done in our committee for Electromagnetic compatibility and Radio spectrum Matters (TC ERM). All of ETSI’s Harmonised Standards, like all our other standards and specifications, are freely available from our website. Further information on ETSI’s Harmonised Standards, including links to download them, is available on our Harmonised Standards web page.

Key facts about the Radio Equipment Directive:

  • Manufacturers of relevant equipment now have to comply with the requirements of the Radio Equipment Directive (2014/53/EU) which has replaced the Radio & Telecommunication Terminal Equipment Directive (1999/5/EC). In most cases, Harmonised Standards are available and cited in the Official Journal of the European Union. The latest list of cited standards (8 June 2017) can be found on the Europa website.
  • For Safety & EMC requirements (articles 3.1a & 3.1b), manufacturers do not need a cited Harmonised Standard to declare compliance with the Directive, although they still need them to benefit from formal presumption of conformity. If your product is a radio product, you can use the appropriate standards of the EN 301 489 series for EMC (article 3.1b), which are available without charge from the ETSI web site.
  • Safety standards are produced by CENELEC.
  • If Harmonised Standards are not yet cited in the Official Journal, compliance with the Directive can also be achieved by drawing up a technical file and submitting it to a Notified Body. More details on this can be found in the European Commission’s Guide to the RED.

About ETSI
ETSI produces globally-applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT), including fixed, mobile, radio, aeronautical, broadcast and internet technologies and is officially recognized by the European Union as a European Standards Organization. ETSI is an independent, not-for-profit association whose more than 800 member companies and organizations, drawn from 68 countries, determine its work programme and participate directly in its work.

Contact
Claire Boyer
Tel: +33 (0)4 92 94 43 35
Mob: +33 (0)6 87 60 84 40
Email: claire.boyer@etsi.org
www.etsi.org