Millions of radio devices and thousands of different types of radio products are placed on the European Single Market every year.
“Radio products” encompass transmitters and receivers alike for consumers and businesses. The range and volume of products is expected to increase significantly due to the overall trend of digitalization, e.g. WLAN, Bluetooth devices, TV and radio broadcast receivers, smartphones, machine to machine (M2M) communication, Internet of Things (IoT) and Industrie 4.0 (Advanced Manufacturing).
Today, radio products (transmitters and receivers) must comply with the outgoing R&TTE Directive 1999/5/EC or the new Radio Equipment Directive 2014/53/EU (RE-D) in order to be placed on the European market. From June 2017 on, RE-D must be applied without alternative.
Looking towards June 2017 (the end of the transition period from the outgoing R&TTE Directive) , it is absolutely certain that for many products it will be impossible for manufacturers to demonstrate conformity of radio products with RE-D on the basis of testing to Harmonized Standards and, therefore be unable to legally gain market access for their products. The reason is that key Harmonized Standards under RE-D will not be available by June 2017.