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(1) Directive 94/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 23 March 1994 on the approximation of the laws of the Member States concerning equipment and protective systems intended for use in potentially explosive atmospheres has been substantially amended . Since further amendments are to be made, that Directive should be recast in the interests of clarity.

(2) Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products lays down rules on the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies, provides a framework for the market surveillance of products and for controls on products from third countries, and lays down the general principles of the CE marking.

(3) Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products lays down common principles and reference provisions intended to apply across sectoral legislation in order to provide a coherent basis for revision or recasts of that legislation. Directive 94/9/EC should be adapted to that Decision.

(4) This Directive covers products which are new to the Union market when they are placed on the market; that is to say they are either new products made by a manufacturer established in the Union or products, whether new or second-hand, imported from a third country.

(5) This Directive should apply to all forms of supply, including distance selling.

(6) It is the duty of Member States to protect, on their territory, the health and safety of persons, especially workers, and, where appropriate, domestic animals and property, especially against the hazards resulting from the use of equipment and systems providing protection against potentially explosive atmospheres.

(7) Directive 94/9/EC has made positive steps towards effective protection against explosion hazards for both mining and surface equipment. Those two groups of equipment are used in a large number of commercial and industrial sectors and possess considerable economic significance.

(8) Compliance with the health and safety requirements is essential in order to ensure the safety of equipment and protective systems. Those requirements should be subdivided into general and additional requirements which need to be met by equipment and protective systems. In particular, the additional requirements should take account of existing or potential hazards. Equipment and protective systems should, therefore, meet at least one of those requirements where this is necessary for their proper functioning or is to apply to their intended use. The notion of intended use is of prime importance for the explosion-proofing of equipment and protective systems. It is essential that manufacturers supply full information. Specific, clear marking of equipment and protective systems, stating their use in a potentially explosive atmosphere, should also be necessary.

(9) Compliance with the essential health and safety requirements laid down in this Directive should be imperative in order to ensure the safety of equipment and protective systems. For the implementation of those requirements, both the technology obtained at the time of manufacture and overriding technical and economic requirements should be taken into account.

(10) Economic operators should be responsible for the compliance of products with this Directive, in relation to their respective roles in the supply chain, so as to ensure a high level of protection of health and safety of persons, especially workers, and, where appropriate, protection of domestic animals and property, and to guarantee fair competition on the Union market.

(11) All economic operators intervening in the supply and distribution chain should take appropriate measures to ensure that they only make available on the market products which are in conformity with this Directive. It is necessary to provide for a clear and proportionate distribution of obligations which correspond to the role of each economic operator in the supply and distribution chain.

(12) In order to facilitate communication between economic operators, market surveillance authorities and consumers, Member States should encourage economic operators to include a website address in addition to the postal address.

(13) The manufacturer, having detailed knowledge of the design and production process, is best placed to carry out the conformity assessment procedure. Conformity assessment should therefore remain solely the obligation of the manufacturer.

(14) It is necessary to ensure that products from third countries entering the Union market comply with this Directive, and in particular that appropriate conformity assessment procedures have been carried out by manufacturers with regard to those products. Provision should therefore be made for importers to make sure that the products they place on the market comply with the requirements of this Directive and that they do not place on the market products which do not comply with such requirements or present a risk. Provision should also be made for importers to make sure that conformity assessment procedures have been carried out and that product marking and documentation drawn up by manufacturers are available for inspection by the competent national authorities.

(15) When placing a product on the market, every importer should indicate on the product his name, registered trade name or registered trade mark and the postal address at which he can be contacted. Exceptions should be provided for in cases where the size or nature of the product does not allow it. This includes cases where the importer would have to open the packaging to put his name and address on the product.

(16) The distributor makes a product available on the market after it has been placed on the market by the manufacturer or the importer and should act with due care to ensure that its handling of the product does not adversely affect the compliance of the product.

(17) Any economic operator that either places a product on the market under his own name or trade mark or modifies a product in such a way that compliance with this Directive may be affected should be considered to be the manufacturer and should assume the obligations of the manufacturer.

(18) Distributors and importers, being close to the market place, should be involved in market surveillance tasks carried out by the competent national authorities, and should be prepared to participate actively, providing those authorities with all necessary information relating to the product concerned.

(19) Ensuring traceability of a product throughout the whole supply chain helps to make market surveillance simpler and more efficient. An efficient traceability system facilitates the market surveillance authorities’ task of tracing economic operators who made non-compliant products available on the market. When keeping the information required under this Directive for the identification of other economic operators, economic operators should not be required to update such information in respect of other economic operators who have either supplied them with a product or to whom they have supplied a product.

(20) This Directive should be limited to the expression of the essential health and safety requirements. In order to facilitate conformity assessment with those requirements it is necessary to provide for a presumption of conformity for products which are in conformity with harmonised standards that are adopted in accordance with Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on European Standardisation for the purpose of expressing detailed technical specifications of those requirements.

(21) Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 provides for a procedure for objections to harmonised standards where those standards do not entirely satisfy the requirements of this Directive.

(22) In order to enable economic operators to demonstrate and the competent authorities to ensure that products made available on the market conform to the essential health and safety requirements it is necessary to provide for conformity assessment procedures. Decision No 768/2008/EC establishes modules for conformity assessment procedures, which include procedures from the least to the most stringent, in proportion to the level of risk involved and the level of safety required. In order to ensure inter-sectoral coherence and to avoid ad-hoc variants, conformity assessment procedures should be chosen from among those modules.

(23) Manufacturers should draw up an EU declaration of conformity to provide information required under this Directive on the conformity of a product with the requirements of this Directive and of other relevant Union harmonisation legislation.

(24) To ensure effective access to information for market surveillance purposes, the information required to identify all applicable Union acts should be available in a single EU declaration of conformity. In order to reduce the administrative burden on economic operators, that single EU declaration of conformity may be a dossier made up of relevant individual declarations of conformity.

(25) The CE marking, indicating the conformity of a product, is the visible consequence of a whole process comprising conformity assessment in a broad sense. General principles governing the CE marking are set out in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008. Rules governing the affixing of the CE marking should be laid down in this Directive.

(26) Certain conformity assessment procedures set out in this Directive require the intervention of conformity assessment bodies, which are notified by the Member States to the Commission.