According to Article 3(1) of the Ecodesign Directive, Member States shall take all appropriate measures to ensure that products covered by implementing measures may be placed on the market and/or put into service only if they comply with those measures and bear the CE marking in accordance with Article 5 of the Ecodesign Directive.
Therefore, a manufacturer has the right to place on the market or put into service refrigerating cabinets, as long as such appliances can function according to their intended use, satisfy the applicable minimum Ecodesign requirements and have a CE marking. The same applies for ‘suppliers’ under the Energy Labelling Regulation and its implementing measures.
The Ecodesign Regulation (EU) 2019/2024 and the Energy Labelling Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/2018 provide the same definition of the concept of ‘refrigerating appliance with a direct sales function’:
‘refrigerating appliance with a direct sales function’ means an insulated cabinet with one or more compartments that are controlled at specific temperatures, cooled by natural or forced convection through one or more energy consuming means and is intended for displaying and selling, with or without assisted serving, foodstuffs and other items at specified temperatures below the ambient temperature to customers, accessible directly through open sides or through one or more doors or drawers or both, including refrigerating appliances with a direct sales function with areas used for storage of foodstuffs and other items not accessible by customers, and excluding minibars and wine storage appliances;
Refrigerating cabinets without certain parts, such as doors are not ‘components or sub-assemblies’ under Art 2(2) of the Eco-design Directive, because they are not parts intended to be incorporated into products which are not placed on the market and/or put into service as individual parts for end-users.
If a refrigerating cabinet without doors does not comply with the minimum Ecodesign requirements set out in Annex II to Regulation (EU) 2019/2024 it cannot be placed on the market or put into service.