FantasticSearch

(7) Safety during storage is governed by Council Directive 96/82/EC of 9 December 1996 on the control of major-accident hazards involving dangerous substances which sets out safety requirements for establishments where explosives, including pyrotechnic substances, are present.

(8) As regards safety in transportation, the rules concerning the transport of pyrotechnic articles are covered by international conventions and agreements, including the United Nations recommendations on the transport of dangerous goods. Those aspects should therefore not fall within the scope of this Directive.

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

(10) This Directive should not apply to pyrotechnic articles to which Council Directive 96/98/EC of 20 December 1996 on marine equipment and the relevant international conventions referred to therein apply. It should also not apply to percussion caps intended for toys falling within the scope of Directive 2009/48/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 18 June 2009 on the safety of toys .

(11) Fireworks which are built by a manufacturer for his own use and approved for use exclusively on its territory by the Member State in which the manufacturer is established, and which remain on the territory of that Member State, should not be considered as having been made available on the market and should therefore not need to comply with this Directive.

(12) It should not be possible, where the requirements laid down in this Directive are satisfied, for Member States to prohibit, restrict or hinder the free movement of pyrotechnic articles. This Directive should apply without prejudice to national legislation on the licensing of manufacturers, distributors and importers by the Member States.

(13) Pyrotechnic articles should include fireworks, theatrical pyrotechnic articles and other pyrotechnic articles for technical purposes, such as gas generators used in airbags or in seatbelt pretensioners.

(14) In order to ensure appropriately high levels of protection, pyrotechnic articles should be categorised according to their level of hazard as regards their type of use, purpose or noise level.

(15) Given the dangers inherent in the use of pyrotechnic articles, it is appropriate to lay down age limits for their being made available to persons, and to ensure that their labelling displays sufficient and appropriate information on safe use, in order to protect human health and safety and the environment. Certain pyrotechnic articles should be made available only to persons with the necessary knowledge, skills and experience. With regard to pyrotechnic articles for vehicles, labelling requirements should take into account current practice and the fact that those articles are supplied exclusively to professional users.

(16) The use of pyrotechnic articles and, in particular, the use of fireworks, is subject to markedly divergent cultural customs and traditions in the respective Member States. It is therefore necessary to allow Member States to take national measures to limit the use or sale of certain categories of pyrotechnic articles to the general public for reasons, inter alia, of public security or health and safety.

(17) Economic operators should be responsible for the compliance of pyrotechnic articles with the requirements of this Directive, in relation to their respective roles in the supply chain, so as to ensure a high level of protection of public interests, such as health and safety and the protection of consumers, and to guarantee fair competition on the Union market.

(18) All economic operators intervening in the supply and distribution chain should take appropriate measures to ensure that they only make available on the market pyrotechnic articles 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.

(19) 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.

(20) 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.

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

(22) The distributor makes a pyrotechnic article 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 his handling of the pyrotechnic article does not adversely affect the compliance of the pyrotechnic article.

(23) Any economic operator who either places a pyrotechnic article on the market under his own name or trademark or modifies a pyrotechnic article in such a way that compliance with the requirements of this Directive may be affected should be considered to be the manufacturer and should assume the obligations of the manufacturer.

(24) 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 pyrotechnic article concerned.

(25) 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 pyrotechnic article or to whom they have supplied a pyrotechnic article.

(26) It is appropriate to establish essential safety requirements for pyrotechnic articles in order to protect consumers and to prevent accidents.

(27) Some pyrotechnic articles, particularly pyrotechnic articles for vehicles such as air bag gas generators, contain small amounts of commercial blasting agents and military explosives. Following the adoption of Directive 2007/23/EC it has become obvious that it will not be possible to replace these substances as additives in strictly combustive compositions, where they are used to enhance the energetic balance. The essential safety requirement, which restricts the use of commercial blasting agents and military explosives, should therefore be modified.

(28) In order to facilitate conformity assessment with the essential safety requirements provided for in this Directive, it is necessary to provide for a presumption of conformity for pyrotechnic articles 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, amending Council Directives 89/686/EEC and 93/15/EEC and Directives 94/9/EC, 94/25/EC, 95/16/EC, 97/23/EC, 98/34/EC, 2004/22/EC, 2007/23/EC, 2009/23/EC and 2009/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council for the purpose of expressing detailed technical specifications of those requirements.

(29) 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.

(30) In order to enable economic operators to demonstrate and the competent authorities to ensure that pyrotechnic articles made available on the market comply with the essential 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 intersectoral coherence and to avoid ad-hoc variants, conformity assessment procedures should be chosen from among those modules.

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

(39) Conformity assessment bodies frequently subcontract parts of their activities linked to the assessment of conformity or have recourse to a subsidiary. In order to safeguard the level of protection required for the pyrotechnic articles to be placed on the Union market, it is essential that conformity assessment subcontractors and subsidiaries fulfil the same requirements as notified bodies in relation to the performance of conformity assessment tasks. Therefore, it is important that the assessment of the competence and the performance of bodies to be notified and the monitoring of bodies already notified cover also activities carried out by subcontractors and subsidiaries.

(40) It is necessary to increase the efficiency and transparency of the notification procedure and, in particular, to adapt it to new technologies so as to enable online notification.