Directive 89/686/EEC Personal protective equipment

The Directive on Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) 89/686/EEC belongs to the family of directives under Article 114 of the Treaty on the functioning of the European Union. They harmonise products ensuring a high level of protection for citizens and free circulation throughout Europe.

Safety and health are basic values

It is a must for PPE, the products having the unique feature to provide for protection against specific hazards, to meet this challenge: to ensure the user's safety and health in specific circumstances. The manufacturer informs about the type of hazards against which his product protects.

The European Union initiated Directive 89/686/EEC in order to ensures equally safe products throughout the European Union. Before the provision of the Directive can be applied its text has to be "transposed" into national legislation. Each Member State has to integrate the provisions into its legislation, and it is the transposed text that is applied at the national level. Transposition is not to be understood to be a verbatim translation, the provisions of a Directive can also be integrated into different texts of national legislation. Hence, whoever may apply this Directive is advised to consult the relevant transposition of the provisions. The National Contact Point might give first bearings and valuable hints.