European Power Tool Association
EPTA (aisbl)
The selfless purpose of international benefit of the Association is solely to • promote the general, non-material and economic interests in the service of manufacturers of electrical tools in particular at the European and international levels; • foster cooperation with the European authorities and other entities, in order to represent and promote its members' interests; • seek dialogue in particular at the European and international levels with professional and economic organizations whose members do not belong to the Asso-ciation; • preserve free and fair competition.
ID: 460603337124-71
Lobbying Activity
Meeting with Stéphane Séjourné (Executive Vice-President) and
28 Oct 2025 · High Level Dialogue with Industry executives on the implementation of CBAM.
Response to Proposal amending the Batteries Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 as regards battery due diligence obligations
29 Jul 2025
The European Power Tool Association (EPTA) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Regulation (EU) 2023/1542 as regards obligations of economic operators concerning battery due diligence policies. Please find our comments in the enclosed position paper.
Read full responseResponse to EU label on product durability and EU notice on consumers’ legal guarantee rights
25 Jul 2025
The European Power Tool Association (EPTA) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft Implementing Regulation on the design and content of the harmonised notice of the legal guarantee of conformity and of the harmonised label for the commercial guarantee of durability. Please find our comments in the enclosed position paper.
Read full responseResponse to Commission Implementing Regulation on the list for the purposes of Article 26 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1252
25 Jul 2025
The European Power Tool Association (EPTA) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the draft Implementing Regulation listing the products, components and waste streams considered as having a relevant critical raw materials recovery potential under Regulation (EU) 2024/1252. Please find our comments in the enclosed position paper.
Read full responseResponse to Revision of the Standardisation Regulation
21 Jul 2025
EPTA strongly supports the policy goals of strengthening European standardisation as well its strategic, international role. To achieve this, EPTA suggests three key areas of action: 1. A pragramtic approach to transition periods of harmonised standards 2. A comprehensive review of the HAS system and its possible alternatives 3. A solution-oriented approach to Formal Objections against harmonised standards Overall, EPTA encourages the increased ex ante participation of public authorities in the standardisation process, as it would speed up the overall process while strengthening the outcome, lowering the need for ex post challenge and correction, and ultimately improving legal certainty for European companies and by consequence strengthening their competitiveness.
Read full responseResponse to Sustainable products - disclosure of information on unsold consumer products
10 Jul 2025
The European Power Tool Association (EPTA) welcomes the opportunity to provide feedback on the Draft Implementing Regulation laying down rules for the application of Regulation (EU) 2024/1781 of the European Parliament and of the Council as regards the details and format for the disclosure of information on discarded unsold consumer products. Please find our comments in the enclosed position paper.
Read full responseMeeting with Andreas Glück (Member of the European Parliament)
26 Mar 2025 · Environment Policy
Response to Targeted technical update of EU rules on measuring instruments
3 Mar 2025
EPTA, the European Power Tool Association represents 24 European manufacturers of electrical power tools with a strong production base in central Europe. Our members represent approximately 70.000 employees in Europe (170.000 worldwide) and around 90% of corded and cordless power tool sales in Europe (by value). EPTA appreciates the opportunity to provide its feedback to the public consultation regarding an amendment to the Measuring Instruments Directive.
Read full responseResponse to Single Market Strategy 2025
31 Jan 2025
EPTA, the European Power Tool Association represents 24 European manufacturers of electrical power tools with a strong production base in central Europe. Our members represent approximately 70.000 employees in Europe (170.000 worldwide) and around 90% of corded and cordless power tool sales in Europe (by value). EPTA appreciates the opportunity to provide its feedback to the Call for Evidence for a Single Market Strategy 2025. Our thoughts on how best to achieve the goals of the Single Market Strategy 2025 can be found in the attached document.
Read full responseMeeting with Marion Walsmann (Member of the European Parliament)
16 Oct 2024 · Mittelstand
Response to Evaluation of Standardisation Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012
29 Sept 2023
EPTA, the European Power Tool Association, thanks the European Commission for this opportunity to give feedback to the Call for Evidence regarding Regulation 1025/2012 on European Standardisation. Our detailed input may be found in the attached document.
Read full responseResponse to Review of the requirements for packaging and feasibility of measures to prevent packaging waste
24 Apr 2023
European Power Tool Association (EPTA) statement on the European Commissions proposal for a Regulation on packaging and packaging waste EPTA, the European Power Tool Association, represents 25 European power tool manufacturers and 90% of all corded and cordless power tools sold in Europe. Power tools are used by professionals, skilled tradesmen and DIY consumers. EPTA members are committed to the highest possible standards of quality and safety of their tools. Innovation and advanced technologies as well as customer-friendly applications are key to our companies economic growth, competitiveness and the creation of jobs. More information can be found at http://www.epta.eu/. As an industry that is already heavily investing into innovative, high-quality and sustainable packaging solutions, we welcome the European Commissions ambitious push for a more circular and sustainable European economy. In this context we also appreciate the approach to harmonise European rules for packaging using a Regulation with a single market legal basis as an instrument. The proposal for a Packaging and Packaging Waste Regulation (PPWR) can avoid fragmentated national efforts, hindering the free movement of goods in the European single market, and align the different approaches of countries in a multi-speed Europe. This is especially important as national labelling schemes and similar requirements (e.g. on recyclability, re-use, recycled content) can lead to an increased burden on economic operators and negative effects on the environment. To avoid such downsides, the best solution from our point of view is a harmonised European label, which does not use colour-coded or language-dependent signage. Different methods of application should be usable, such as printing, engraving, or casting and most importantly a QR code. This QR code should be compatible with similar digital data carriers required in other European legislation to avoid a multitude of QR codes on the packaging or product. In this regard, a single QR code for both, product and packaging should be able to be used but should not be mandatory. A uniform European label for packaging would also have the added value of being understandable to all European citizens everywhere in the Union and stop the confusing effects of a multitude of labels on the same unit of packaging, facilitating its positive effects on for example sorting. We believe fragmented national labelling requirements lead to additional efforts such as more complex logistics, causing higher energy use and CO2-Emmissions. Additionally, a sufficient transitional period for a harmonised label should be given for industry to adapt. Lastly, we also want to stress that as an industry, the power tools sector is already now mainly using sturdy boxes, kit boxes and containers, that serve to contain, transport and protect the power tools during their entire lifetime, and which serve as an integral part of our products to our customers. These boxes, kit boxes and containers are used on a daily basis to transport the wide array of power tools necessary for a given construction site to the site in vans and other vehicles and are then again used to distribute the tools on-site, to make sure that the required accessories such as different drills or sawblades, batteries and chargers are always accessible. In this regard, we call on the legislators to include power tool boxes, kit boxes and containers as an indicative example of non-packaging in Annex I, in the same way as boxes for traditional mechanical tools. We as EPTA want to thank the European legislators for this chance to be in dialogue and are looking forward to further involvement as stakeholders in the PPWR legislative process. More details regarding our main concerns can be found in the attached joint position paper.
Read full responseMeeting with Kerstin Jorna (Director-General Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs)
22 Sept 2021 · Discuss about the European Standardisation system and its development, and the proposed Regulation on machinery products
Response to Revision of the Machinery Directive
2 Aug 2021
The European Power Tool Association represents European manufacturing companies of the hand-held electrical tool sector (professional and Do-it-Yourself). The Machinery Regulation proposal contains both opportunities and challenges for our sector:
Opportunities
Foremost, the revision of the directive and its transformation into a regulation as well as the alignment with the rules of the New Legislative Framework was necessary in order to harmonize legislation across the EU. The opportunity for European businesses to provide the instructions and the declaration of conformity in a digital format will help to cut down administrative burdens, reduce costs and the usage of paper.
Challenges
However, our companies are highly concerned about the foreseen transition period laid down in Art. 49-52 of the proposal. European companies will need more time to adjust and harmonize important safety-relevant standards. Especially large scale manufacturers face the difficulty to implement the new requirements for their large scale production and global value chains. In particular, Art. 50 of the proposal does not provide a sufficient transition period between the old Directive and the new Regulation for placing products on the market after the new Regulation enters into force. A 12 month transition period for "making (products) available on the market" is contradictory to the environmental goals of the European Green Deal as this will very likely lead to electrical waste or scapping of products.
Please find attached our position paper with our fact findings and arguments.
For further information, please contact eich@epta.eu
Read full responseResponse to Modernising the EU’s batteries legislation
26 Feb 2021
The European Power Tool Association represents 26 manufacturing companies of professional electrical tools used by skilled tradesmen and DIY-customers for different applications such as construction site, automotive, wood working, painting, and cleaning. EPTA members are responsible for over 90% of power tools sold across Europe with an annual turnover of €7bn for professional tools and equipment. Within the EPTA membership we have next to big international companies many small and medium size businesses which are often family driven and privately owned. All companies produce and sell power tools on a global scale and are depended on global supply chains as well as international standardisation.
In the last decade, advanced battery technologies were responsible for strong growth of cordless tool, surpassing the number of corded tools sold on the European market in 2019. Our companies are committed to further innovate battery driven products to reach the highest possible sustainability criteria and meeting customer demands. EPTA therefore, takes its opportunity to comment on the European Commission’s proposal for a Battery Regulation. We welcome the proposal which intends to harmonize national rules for collection/recycling across member states while making batteries more sustainable and safer. However, EPTA wants to shed light on the following aspects of the proposal that need to be clarified or even changed by lawmakers:
The labelling requirements cannot be fulfilled accordingly. EPTA recommends a pragmatic approach by introducing a QR-Code for all
important and necessary information provision.
The calculation method for collection rates is not applicable to fast growing battery markets. A reality check for the calculation method is
necessary as many factors influence the collection of batteries.
The definition of categories must be more precise to avoid a demarcation line cutting through portable and industrial battery portfolios
The PEF methodology, an open Battery Management System, requirements for mandatory recycled content as well as obligations for due
diligence should only apply to industrial >10kWh and electrical vehicle batteries
All design-restricting eco-design requirements such as reuse, repairability, removability, replaceability and remanufacturing should be dealt
under Eco-Design Regulation. Here safety and consumer protection must be the priority.
Please find attached EPTA position paper with all details.
Read full responseResponse to Modernising the EU’s batteries legislation
23 Jun 2020
EPTA position on the EU’s Initiative “Modernizing the EU’s battery legislation”
Market & Product Characteristics
• The market has been constantly growing for the last years showing different growth rates between corded (2 – 3 % p.a.) and cordless (5 – 10 % p.a.).
• The most popular groups of power tools already have detachable batteries.
• Many power tool batteries are interoperable if they are part of technical platform of the manufacturer
• Primary batteries are not used as the main power source but for tool data system backup as auxiliary batteries, where they last over the entire lifetime of the tool.
EPTA Positions
1. The Battery Directive should be transformed into a Regulation in order to harmonize requirements and ensuring a level playing field.
2. A calculation scheme for recycling rates should be based on the amount of batteries that are available for recycling instead of the amount of batteries that are in the market. In the power tool sector, the lifetime of batteries is up to 10 years. Together with the fact that the market is growing fast, recycling rates are underestimated within the current calculation scheme.
3. Intensified information provided to consumers and collection points has the potential to improve the number of collected batteries and the quality of sorting. We reject the introduction of a deposit scheme on batteries.
4. To secure the proper treatment of batteries in appliances, manufacturers shall be obliged to provide, by electronic means, instructions to recyclers – ideally on a product category rather than product model basis. This information should be able to be provided as part of the electronic instruction manual available through the manufacturer’s website. EPTA proposes to keep the definition under the Battery Directive as it is.
5. The Battery Directive should focus on battery technologies. Replaceability should be treated product-specific in ecodesign requirements.
6. The power tool manufacturers are acknowledging interoperability of different products under one brand but have identified limits of cross-brand interoperability.
7. Repurposing of batteries should only be possible under clear rules. Safety, security and a clear determination of the manufacturer are essential.
8. In opposite to automotive and industrial batteries, portable batteries show very limited space for labelling. Current IEC standards asking for colour coding of the Li-Ion and all chemistries – after a few years in use any information or the brand is not readable anymore due to intense use under harsh condition (dust, humidity, etc.) – a coloured marking in not useful.
9. All limits for substances shall be treated under substances regulation (e.g. REACH) and not under the Battery Directive.
About EPTA
EPTA represents European power tool manufacturers. Our 26 member companies represent approximately 50.000 employees in Europe (170 000 worldwide) and 85% of all corded and cordless power tools sold. Power tools are used by professionals, skilled trades men and DIY consumers. The industry’s annual turnover is about 6 billion Euro. Power tools are high volume products, manufactured and sold globally. Importantly, our industry strongly relies on its global value chains, guaranteeing a functioning and accessible supply of resources and components. Innovation and advanced technologies as well as customer-friendly applications are key to our companies’ economic growth, competitiveness and the creation of jobs. More than two third of EPTA members are Small and Medium Size Enterprises, most of them are privately owned. The annual total volume of sales is about 50 million units (60% cordless = battery operated).
Read full responseResponse to Chemicals strategy for sustainability
18 Jun 2020
Feedback of European Power Tool Association (aisbl)
1) Legislative coherence for substances which are regulated under multiple chemical legislation. This often creates confusion and additional costs and administrative burdens especially for small and medium size companies.
2) Substance bans or restrictions must be accompanied by thorough impact assessments which address the availability of alternatives.
3) It is necessary to safeguard and ensure European competitiveness by giving companies enough time for the introduction of alternatives.
4) A priority shall be given to the recovery of materials from the end-of-life waste products. Innovation and new technologies for the material recovery is crucial and would lead to a more sustainable performances of material cycles. Here, the European Commission should provide support for finding viable substance alternatives and support in technological investments for material recovery
5)Future measures to improve material transparency must be accompanied by thorough impact assessments to ensure that measures are workable, proportionate and contribute to Circular Economy objectives.
Read full response