Regulation (EC) No 66/2010 of the European Parliament and of the CouncilShow full title

Article 8 Establishment of EU Ecolabel criteria

1. Draft EU Ecolabel criteria shall be developed in accordance with the procedure laid down in Annex I and taking into account the working plan.

2. The Commission shall, no later than nine months after consulting the EUEB, adopt measures to establish specific EU Ecolabel criteria for each product group. These measures shall be published in the Official Journal of the European Union.

In its final proposal, the Commission shall take into account the comments of the EUEB and shall clearly highlight, document and provide explanations for the reasoning behind any changes in its final proposal compared to the proposal for draft criteria following the consultation of the EUEB.

Those measures, designed to amend non-essential elements of this Regulation, by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in Article 16(2).

3. In the measures referred to in paragraph 2 the Commission shall:

(a) establish requirements for assessing the compliance of specific products with EU Ecolabel criteria (‘assessment requirements’);

(b) specify, for each product group, three key environmental characteristics that may be displayed in the optional label with text box described in Annex II;

(c) specify, for each product group, the relevant period of validity of the criteria and of the assessment requirements;

(d) specify the degree of product variability allowed during the period of validity referred to in point (c).

4. When establishing EU Ecolabel criteria, care shall be taken not to introduce measures whose implementation may impose disproportionate administrative and economic burdens on SMEs.