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NIST SP 951
Regulating and harmonizing laws for every product with specific, highly technical requirements for each proved to be an impossible task. The new, more practical approach, the New Approach, was to govern families of products. Regulation of these products took on a more generic format, and was limited to "Essential Health and Safety Requirements." Today, because these laws have replaced old national laws, products meeting these essential health and safety requirements can be placed on the market in any country within the European Economic Area (EEA) Union and move freely throughout all 18 countries. The families of New Approach products are listed below in Table 1. Table 1: New Approach Directives
Obviously, not all products are governed by New Approach Directives. There are essentially three regulatory levels. Technical requirements differ for each of them. There are the "old approach" regulations, which have technical specifications integrated into the annexes. Some of these products are regulated on a product-by-product basis. The New Approach Directives make references to harmonized standards. In the third level, products are unregulated at the EU level, but the products may be regulated at the national level and are governed by Member State laws. It must be remembered that the European Union is the newest economic region in the industrialized world and as such, is still a work in progress. This guide will cover only the products that fall under the New Approach Directives listed above. Return to the Table of Contents
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