This Directive aims at the free market circulation on machinery and at the protection of workers and consumers using such machinery. It defines essential health and safety requirements of general application, supplemented by a number of more specific requirements for certain categories of machinery.
Where, for machinery, the hazards referred to in Annex I of the Directive are wholly or partly covered more specifically by other Community Directives, this Directive shall not apply, or shall cease to apply, to that machinery in respect of such hazards from the date of implementation of those other directives.
This Directive applies to machinery, interchangeable equipment, safety components, lifting accessories, chains, ropes and webbing, removable mechanical transmission devices and partly completed machinery as defined in Art. 2 of the Directive.