The certification of particularly safety-relevant products by independent inspection bodies
European product safety legislation confers a considerable degree of responsibility to the manufacturer. According to the Product Safety Act (ProdSG), the compliance with requirements relevant for the product is not regulated by an official admission office. The monitoring lies exclusively with the manufacturer.
The EU has determined specific conformity assessment procedures for testing whether products satisfy the requirements, i.e. assessing that they conform to them.
Within the scope of this procedure, for certain particularly safety-relevant products, certification by an independent notified body is obligatory. A body of this kind needs to be reported in advance to the European Commission and its member states in order to be approved and thus able to operate.
Up-to-date information on notified bodies in Germany, other EU member states and/or EFTA states and other nations with which the EU has concluded either a third country agreement (MRA – Mutual Recognition Agreement) or signed a PECA (Protocol to the Europe Agreement on Conformity Assessment and Acceptance) is accessible through the NANDO Information System of the EU.
If you have questions regarding the notification details of the German bodies as regards the ProdSG, please contact the Central Office of Federal States for Safety Technology (Zentralstelle der Länder für Sicherheitstechnik, ZLS).