This is one of the most frequently misunderstood and misinterpreted areas of legislation. The problem lies with what is defined as military equipment, and as already observed, the coffee maker in the Colonel's office, the kitchen equipment, and the computers in the admin block are NOT military equipment and are therefore subject to all civilian legislation and will require CE marking where appropriate.
Military equipment is that equipment that has a truly military purpose; e.g. a command and control system, or a missile tracking radar, or battlefield communications, etc. This is not necessarily subject to civilian legislation, but is almost certainly subject to military standards that are sometimes more stringent, always different. I said not necessarily above, because in the UK I have found that the situation can be quite different. Many years ago there existed the provision for Crown immunity from prosecution, which meant that the UK military needn't worry about the penalties for injuries to personnel. That situation changed more than 10 years ago when Crown immunity was withdrawn, meaning that the military could be prosecuted for injuries resulting from unsafe equipment. Since that time, I have found that it is quite common to apply defence standards, but also to require compliance with all relevant civil legislation, hence requirirng CE marking and the application of all relevant harmonised standards to support that marking. The result is that we now typically apply a standard such as EN 60950 as well as meeting any specific military safety requirements, and test for EMC to both EN and military standards. In some ways, the military get the best of both worlds. Of course, there are occasionally conflicts of requirements, but these can usually be resolved by acceptance of a waiver by either the end user or the prime contractor. Conflicts usually arise only in legacy systems, where upgrades are required to be compatible with existing systems and the interfaces do not necessarily comply with EN standards. Clearly in this situation the user requirements take precedence over the CE marking requirements. I hope this helps. Best regards Neil R. Barker CEng MIET FSEE MIEEE Manager Quality Engineering e2v technologies (uk) ltd 106 Waterhouse Lane Chelmsford Essex CM1 2QU UK Tel: (+44) 1245 453616 Fax: (+44) 1245 453571 Mob: (+44) 7801 723735 From: Doug Beckwith [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 16 October 2006 20:23 To: [email protected] Subject: CE Marking for Military equipment Hi All, Can anyone provide some information or a pointer to some information on CE marking of Military equipment. We have a product that is going to be sold in the EU, and it is used by both Military and police forces. The question has come up regarding the CE marking requirement. Regards Doug Beckwith - This message is from the IEEE Product Safety Engineering Society emc-pstc discussion list. Website: http://www.ieee-pses.org/ To post a message to the list, send your e-mail to [email protected] Instructions: http://listserv.ieee.org/request/user-guide.html List rules: http://www.ieee-pses.org/listrules.html For help, send mail to the list administrators: Scott Douglas [email protected] Mike Cantwell [email protected] For policy questions, send mail to: Jim Bacher: [email protected] David Heald: [email protected] All emc-pstc postings are archived and searchable on the web at: http://www.ieeecommunities.org/emc-pstc ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________
