Moving into the middle of 2019, the situation with Ecodesign remains roughly where it was in January.

We have now seen the full final text of the Ecodesign regulations. The text is as discussed in the 5th January entry below, which is to say generally good news but with some very particular issues caused by the way the EU have changed one section of the text the entertainment lighting industry supplied (Annex III - 3(w)), so that it reads ‘two or more’ instead of ‘one more’. This renders most of the section invalid since none of the specified light sources can meet two or more of the requirements (since a DWE lamp cannot also be, for example, an LED source).

Frustratingly, it has been impossible to establish exactly why this change was made or by who, beyond ‘by some of the member states’ at the final EU meeting discussing the regulations on December 17th last year. EU process is that once such a meeting takes place and all of the member states agree on the text, no further reviews take place and this text becomes the ‘approved’ text. This text is still subject to approval by the European Parliament, but this is generally accepted to be a formality unless there is some outrageous issue with the regulation. The text was forwarded for approval on 7th February; it is expected to be voted on during May/June, and adopted and published in the Official Journal of the Union in June/July; it is generally accepted that it will be waved through.

However it appears that it is not possible to change what is considered to be the final text. It has been suggested that the entertainment industry needs to provide a revised text, and this text needs to be submitted via the member states to be voted on as a later revision to the regulation.

The entertainment industry has now prepared a suitable revised text. Once it has been agreed upon by all involved, it will be submitted to the member states via Pearle, the European producer’s league. Since Britain has not managed to Brexit yet, we in the UK still get to be part of this process.....

for more on the #SaveStageLighting Campaign visit its own pages: www.savestage.lighting