What new features does the Regulation on Personal Safety Equipment bring?

The new Regulation on Personal Safety Equipment came into effect in May 2020, and in late June, the List of Serbian Standards for Personal Safety Equipment was published in the Official Gazette.

The new features of the regulation will be discussed at the webinar organized on December 8 by the Institute for Standardization of Serbia.

One of the lecturers is Jelena Ivancevic, an independent advisor, from the Sector for Quality and Safety of Products at the Ministry of Economy.

When it comes to said list of Serbian standards, she explains that it ensures that the personal safety equipment meets the important health and safety requirements as defined in Appendix 2 of said Regulation.

Depending on the category of personal safety equipment, various procedures of assessing the harmonization are applied, within which the possibility of the checking of the harmonization of the personal safety equipment with the requirements of the Serbian standards is envisaged, provided that the producer used the standards as the premise for proof of harmonization.

– If there`s reasonable doubt that the personal safety equipment is a risk, the market supervision organs can carry out the examination of the personal safety equipment in question (with participation of named subjects) and check whether it meets the requirements of the standards cited in the technical documentation under the risk category for which the equipment was produced and categorized – says Jelena Ivancevic.

The organ in charge of supervising personal safety equipment in the market is the Ministry of Trade, Tourism and Telecommunications, Sector of Market Inspection.

– Considering that the supervision started in October, the results will be known in late December 2020 at the latest. Based on the previous years` experiences, based on the controls carried out by market inspectors in 2018, the delivery of 11,235 pieces of various kinds of personal safety equipment for welding (masks, shields, goggles) was banned due to not being harmonized with the Regulation on Personal Safety Equipment that was in effect at the time, whereas, in 2019, the delivery of 3,863 sunglasses was banned, also because of failure to harmonize with the contemporary Regulation on Personal Safety Equipment – Ivancevic says.

In late 2015, the Strategy of Upgrading the Quality Infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia for 2015-2020 was adopted. Our interviewee says that it has been largely implemented. A modern strategic and legislative framework of the quality infrastructure, harmonized with the European one, has been built, in order to put safe, quality products in the market and facilitate business (four systemic laws, as well as technical regulations for 16 product groups).

– Local businesses have been enabled to operate in line with the most modern international standards of quality and safety, whereby the level of competitiveness of the Serbian economy has been upgraded considerably. The Institute for Standardization of Serbia has adopted over 99% of the CEN standard, around 98% of the CENELEC standard and over 80% of the ETSI standard. These standards are the implementation of European standards and are fully harmonized with them – Jelena Ivancevic added.

The Accreditation Body of Serbia (ATS) has kept the status of a signatory of the European Accreditation Multilateral Agreement (EU MLA).

The Directorate for Measures and Precious Metals (DMDM) has kept the membership in the competent metrology international organizations.

Regarding the protection of children, in 2018, the Ministry of Economy for the first time regulated the area of children`s playgrounds by adopting the Regulation on the Safety of Children`s Playgrounds, whereby the safety, maintenance and control of outdoor children`s playgrounds was upgraded considerably.

As part of the activities of Negotiation Group 1 (Goods Traffic), all the directives and regulations of the EU within the competence of the Ministry of Economy, in the field of goods traffic, have been taken and implemented into the domestic legal system.

Strategic documents Draft Strategy and Action Plan for Harmonization for NG1 (Criterion no. 2) were successfully prepared (and sent to the European Commission in July 2020) for the purpose of meeting the criteria and opening the negotiations within NG1 – Goods Traffic, to the end of increasing the competitiveness of the local economy.

– The final harmonization of the Draft Action Plan for the Harmonization of the Legislation of the Republic of Serbia with Articles 34-36 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is in progress. With the government`s adoption of this AP, the Criterion 1 for the opening of the negotiations for the negotiation chapter 1, Goods Traffic, will be met. Explanatory and bilateral screenings were previously successfully carried out with representatives of the European Commission in 2014. The EC rated both screenings positively – Jelena Ivancevic says.

Aleksandra Kekic

Ministarstvo privrede Republike Srbije

Ministarstvo turizma i omladine Republike Srbije

Institut za standardizaciju Srbije Beograd

Akreditaciono telo Srbije Beograd

Direkcija za mere i dragocene metale Republike Srbije

Ministry of Economy

Ministry of Trade Tourism and Telecommunications

Sector of Market Inspection

Sector for Quality and Safety of Products

Institute for Standardization of Serbia

Accreditation Body of Serbia

ATS

Directorate for Measures and Precious Metals

DMDM

European Accreditation

EA

European Council

European Parliament

Jelena Ivancevic

Regulation on Personal Safety Equipment

personal safety equipment

List of Serbian Standards for Personal Safety Equipment

Serbian standards

certificates

heat protection equipment

welding protection equipment

masks

shields

goggles

sunglasses

Strategy of Upgrade of Quality Infrastructure in the Republic of Serbia for 2015 2020

CEN standard

CENELEC standard

ETSI standard

CEN

CENELEC

ETSI

signatory of a multilateral agreement

MLA

testing lab

measuring lab

medical lab

control bodies

certification bodies for certification of products

certification bodies for certification of management systems and persons

Regulation of Safety of Children s Playgrounds

goods traffic

machines

elevators

electrical and electronic equipment

equipment used in explosive environment

textile

footwear

criteria

non automatic scales

pre packed products

aerosol dispensers

Draft Strategy and Action Plan for Harmonization for NG1

Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union

Criterion 1

Criterion 2

negotiation chapter 1

special edition newsletter

Digitalization and Safe Operations Business Security in the 21st Century

Digitalization and Safe Operations

Business Security in the 21st Century

digitalization

safe operations

business security