This report outlines the economic impacts of Regulation (EU) No 305/2011 laying down harmonised conditions for the marketing of construction products and repealing Council Directive 89/106/EEC.
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An EU consultation with construction products manufacturers, distributors, national and European associations representing manufacturers, distributors, professional and private end-users has been conducted to gather qualitative and quantitative information on the costs and benefits stemming from the Construction Product Regulation (CPR).
Results of the cost evaluation indicate that construction product manufacturers across the EU incur regulatory costs estimated at € 2.62 billion per year to comply with CPR obligations. This accounts for approximately 0.6% of the total turnover of the construction products sector, with micro companies facing the highest costs as a share of their turnover. A few companies reported one-off investment costs to acquire printers, production control and IT systems. Overall, only a tiny share of these administrative and substantive compliance costs are deemed to be additional costs compared to the pre-CPR situation, since most of the CPR obligations refer to requirements already in place under the CPD for products within the harmonised sphere. The obligations of the distributors under the CPR, which are related to checking that products bear the CE marking and are accompanied with the corresponding documentation, incur fewer costs. The majority of consulted professional end-users associations representing have not mentioned any costs generated by the CPR.
Results of the benefit analysis show that the CPR did not generate cost savings for manufacturers compared with the situation before 2013, although the possibility to supply an electronic Declaration of Performance (DoP) has reduced the administrative burden. Few market opportunities have been created following the CPR implementation for manufacturers and persisting national testing requirements have been mentioned as a barrier to the realization of the Single Market for construction products. On the other hand, a majority of professional end-users indicated new market opportunities and increased availability of products thanks to the CPR, along with improved provision of information and comparison of products. However, some professional end-users stated that the DoP does not include all the information needed to make an informed choice among available products due to the allegedly partial coverage of harmonised standards.
The Guide on the CE marking of construction products is available here.
