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Energy, Climate change, Environment
Energy Efficient Products

What to consider when legislation has been revised

For all regulations a certain period is specified between the publication of a new regulation and the applicability of the specific regulation requirements. This transition period ensures sufficient lead-time for the market actors (including manufacturers, importers distributors, and dealers) to adjust their products and product information for compliance without disruptive effects on production and sales.   

During the transition period, manufacturers, importers, and distributors are still allowed to place products on the market, which were manufactured in line with the previous legislation.   

After the transition period, products not in line with the new legislation, must no longer be placed on the market. 

The following different types of dates indicated in the regulations have a different meaning and must be distinguished: 

  • Date of the adoption of the regulation by the Commission: This date is part of the headline of the regulation document, e.g. commission regulation(EU) 2023/2533 of 17th of November 2023 implementing directive 2009/125/EC.
  • Date of publication of the regulation in the Official Journal of the EU: (date, on which the regulation was published in the Official Journal of the EU). This date is shown in the topline (PDF) or in the upper right corner (HTML) of the regulation document. 
  • Entry into force of the regulation: At this date, a regulation becomes part of the EU legislation. However, often provisions are not applicable by this date, but later. In many cases, entry into force is the 20th day following the publication date. In other cases, an absolute date in specified. 
  • Date of application of requirements: Date, where provisions of the regulation must be followed and can be enforced by MSAs. Not all requirements specified in a regulation necessarily must apply at the same date. Differences concerning the date of application are specified in the regulation. The date of application of a regulation resp. of a requirement is the date, which effectively is of legal importance for suppliers and manufacturers.