Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2024/994 of 2 April 2024 laying down operational details of the product database established under Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 of the European Parliament and of the Council

Article 1

Subject matter and scope

This Regulation sets out operational details for the functioning of the product database established in line with Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 and detailed rules applying to suppliers placing on the Union market:

(a) energy-related products covered by delegated acts supplementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 and Directive 2010/30/EU;

(b) tyres covered by Regulation (EU) 2020/740 or by delegated acts supplementing it.

Those operational details and rules relate to:

(a) the verification process that allows natural persons and legal persons to become verified suppliers and to ensure confidentiality, integrity and authenticity of the information registered by them;

(b) information required to register product models;

(c) data exchange models and software release management;

(d) availability of the system and of the data.

Article 2

Definitions

For the purposes of this Regulation, the definitions in points (5) ‘authentication’, (12) ‘qualified electronic signature’, (19) ‘trust service provider’, (20) ‘qualified trust service provider’, (27) ‘qualified electronic seal’ and (30) ‘qualified certificate for electronic seal’ of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 and in point (16) ‘distributor’ of Article 3 of Regulation (EU) 2020/740 shall apply.

The following definitions also apply:

(1) ‘EPREL’ or ‘European Product Registry for Energy Labelling’ means the product database established and maintained by the Commission in line with Article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369;

(2) ‘verification process’ means the process by which a natural person or legal person provides evidence of identity and of establishment in the Union, entitling them to register products in EPREL;

(3) ‘Business Register Identifier’ or ‘Register ID’ means the alphanumerical code assigned by a Member State’s authority, or someone acting on its behalf, to the particular section or office of the business register assigning the business registration number to natural persons or legal persons performing a professional activity, such as business or trade. If the legal person is in the scope of Directive (EU) 2017/1132, such number shall be part of the unique identifier (EUID) referred to in Article 16(1) of the same Directive and in point 9 of the Annex to Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1042 (¹);

(4) ‘Business Registration Number’ means the alphanumerical code, attributed by a business register at national level to the legal person or to the natural person performing a professional activity and providing evidence of its identity and its establishment in the Member State where the register is established. If the person is in the scope of Directive (EU) 2017/1132, such number shall be part of the unique identifier (EUID) referred to in Article 16(1) of the same Directive and in point 9 of the Annex to the Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1042;

(5) ‘verified supplier’ means an EPREL supplier that has successfully completed the supplier verification process in the EPREL compliance system according to Articles 4, 5 and 6;

(6) ‘unverified supplier’ means an EPREL supplier that has not yet successfully completed the supplier verification process in the EPREL compliance system, including those not having renewed the qualified electronic seal within the required deadline;

(7) ‘EPREL supplier’ means a natural person or legal person in its capacity to act as a supplier for registering product models in the product database;

(8) ‘data exchange model’ means an XML model used to define the data structure and semantics of the product data, by means of the XML markup language and which permits the data import of the product model’s parameter values from a supplier’s database to the product database;

(9) ‘EPREL compliance system’ means the database and the software for managing its content, accessible via the EPREL compliance website subject to user authentication, enabling suppliers to register both public and compliance data in the product database and also enabling Member State’s market surveillance authorities to perform their activities;

(10) ‘EPREL compliance website’ means the website providing access to the product database for compliance verification purposes, requiring user registration and authentication, where only Member State’s market surveillance authorities and Commission staff have access to any public and technical information of registered product models and to the EPREL supplier information;

(11) ‘EPREL public system’ means the database and the software for accessing its content, freely accessible via the EPREL public website, enabling visitors to consult the public data of any registered product model since its date of placing on the market;

(12) ‘EPREL public website’ means the freely accessible website enabling visitors to consult the public data of any registered product model since its date of placing on the market;

(13) ‘API’ or ‘Application Programming Interface’ means a set of definitions and protocols for building and integrating application software to share data;

(14) ‘business register’ or ‘trade register’ means a Member State’s national public sector body attributing business registration numbers to natural persons or legal persons performing a professional activity such as business or trade and providing evidence of their establishment in the Member State where the national public sector body is established;

(15) ‘GTIN’ or ‘Global Trade Item Number’ means a unique and internationally recognised identifier attributed by the GS1 international organization, used to identify trade items to facilitate accurate identification. GTINs can be encoded as barcode tags, affixed to products or to their packaging, or as Radio Frequency IDentification (RFID) tags;

(16) ‘date of placing on the market’ means the date of placing on the market of the first unit of a product model;

(17) ‘date of end of placing on the market’ means the date of placing on the market of the last unit of a product model;

(18) ‘registered model’ or ‘registered product model’ means a model of a product, whose parameter values have been entered into EPREL. The registered model may not necessarily be publicly visible;

(19) ‘EPREL compliance production system’ means a copy of the compliance system, where the latest software versions are installed by the Commission and where suppliers register the real product models before placing them on the market;

(20) ‘EPREL compliance acceptance system’ means a system where the latest software versions of the compliance production system are installed by the Commission and where the suppliers can register a dummy supplier and dummy product models for testing purposes. Any new software version is first made available on this system and only made available on the EPREL compliance production system after the relevant test and acceptance period has elapsed;

(21) ‘transfer protocol’ means the protocol for electronic communication over the internet to securely exchange information between the computer systems of the supplier and of the Commission;

(22) ‘online portal’ means the website giving access to the public part and to the compliance part of EPREL and containing the information set out in point 2 of Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 and other relevant information on energy efficiency of products (²);

(23) ‘NTR’ means the acronym for identification based on an identifier from a national trade register, as in paragraph 5.1.4 of EN 319 412 -1.

Article 3

Verification requirement for suppliers

Article 4

Verification of legal persons

The ‘Subject’ field present in the qualified certificate for electronic seal shall have an ‘organizationIdentifier’ attribute that shall contain information using the following structure and order:

(a) three-character legal person identity type reference set to the value ‘NTR’;

(b) two-character ISO 3166 (³) country code, indicating the country of establishment;

(c) hyphen-minus sign ‘-’ (U+002D);

(d) the identifier according to the identity type reference for ‘NTR’ using the following structure and order, specified in Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/1042 as the European Unique Identifier (EUID): (i) the Business Register Identifier, for the particular section or office of the public register having attributed the business registration number to the legal person in question; (ii) dot-sign ‘.’ (U+002E); (iii) the Business Registration Number, as attributed to the legal person by the national business register in point (i) above. The Country code, part of the EUID and preceding the abovementioned three fields, as well the verification digit, are optional.

Article 5

Verification of natural persons

A supplier that is a natural person shall also submit evidence of its own establishment within the Union and, if appropriate, of having received a written mandate as authorised representative of a manufacturer not established in the Union, to act on its behalf for registering in EPREL product models of that manufacturer, by means of the following additional information:

(a) the Business Register Identifier, for the particular section or office of the public register which assigned the business or trade register number to the natural person in question at national level;

(b) the Business Registration Number, as attributed to the natural person at national level;

(c) a written mandate by the manufacturer(s) listing all brand/trademarks for which the mandate applies. The abovementioned information in points (a) and (b) shall be communicated in a document: (i) digitally signed by the natural person; (ii) digitally sealed or digitally signed by the competent authority responsible at national level for the business or trade register or, in the impossibility of this, digitally sealed with confirmation of the truthfulness by a qualified trust service provider. The abovementioned information in point (c) shall be communicated in a document: (i) digitally sealed by each of the non EU manufacturer(s); or (ii) digitally signed by the legal representative(s) of those non EU manufacturer(s).

Article 6

Transitional measures to complete electronic verification by legal persons

In derogation to points (a) and (d) of Article 4(3) and until 22 April 2025, suppliers that are legal persons may submit a qualified electronic seal where the three-character legal person identity type reference may be set to one of the following values:

(a) ‘VAT’ for identification based on a national value added tax identification number;

(b) ‘PSD’ for identification based on national authorization number of a payment service provider under Directive (EU) 2015/2366 of the European Parliament and of the Council (⁴) (Payments Services Directive);

(c) ‘LEI’ for a global Legal Person Identifier as specified in ISO 17442 (⁵). The 2-character ISO 3166-1 country code shall be set to ‘XG’;

(d) two characters according to local definition within the specified country and name registration authority, identifying a national scheme that is considered appropriate for national and European level, followed by the character ‘:’ (colon). The identifier (according to country and identity type reference) has to be in coherence to the three-character legal person identity type reference used.

Article 7

Product models registered by unverified suppliers

Article 8

Public and compliance contact points of suppliers

Article 9

Transfer of registered models between suppliers

Registered product models may be transferred to a verified supplier that takes over the obligations from the previous supplier in relation to those product models from the date indicated for the transfer.

Article 10

Access to EPREL by market surveillance authorities

Article 11

Management of supplier user profiles and verification

Users’ personal data shall be deleted simultaneously to the deletion of their users’ account, unless:

(a) these data are necessary to legally identify the supplier;

(b) they are necessary to track access to technical model information.

An EPREL supplier user profile that is inactive for over one year, after a double email alert, shall be blocked, unless the user profile is the only responsible for the supplier. Personal information of the user shall be deleted automatically one year after the day of blocking the account unless:

(a) keeping these data is necessary to legally identify the supplier;

(b) the user has performed operations that need to be logged in accordance with article 12 of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369.

Article 12

Parameters necessary to identify or differentiate product models

For each registered product model, the Commission may provide suppliers the possibility of voluntarily providing values for the following parameters, when not already included in the specific Delegated Regulation on the product group under Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 or in Regulation (EU) 2020/740:

(a) the GTIN, where applicable;

(b) the Member States where they place their products on the market;

(c) in duly justified cases and after consultation of stakeholders, other parameters not part of the conformity assessment by the supplier and of the compliance verification by market surveillance authorities, which are necessary, in line with provision as from Article 12(11) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369;

(d) information of the kind referred to in Article 16(3) point (d) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1369.

Article 13

Placing and end of placing on the market of product models

The registration by a supplier of a product model in EPREL shall be deemed completed only after all the following parameter values have been entered and the relevant documents have been uploaded in EPREL for each model:

(a) all values related to the parameters and documents required under Regulation (EU) 2017/1369, Regulation (EU) 2020/740 or any delegated act adopted under those regulations applicable to the product;

(b) the date of placing on the market of the first unit of the particular model.

Article 14

Facilitating access to model registrations in EPREL

Article 15

Data exchange model and software release management

Article 16

Maintenance, system availability and data availability

Article 17

Public data availability

The Commission shall make the public parameter values, label and product information sheet of registered models available by the means of Application Programming Interfaces (API), subject to acceptance of terms of use.

Article 18

Inappropriate or fraudulent use of EPREL

Where the Commission identifies inappropriate or fraudulent activity, including linked to massive data download, it shall take the necessary measures to avoid abuse of EPREL.

Article 19

Personal data

The following personal data shall be stored in EPREL to ensure the verification of identity of suppliers:

(a) first and last name of the person legally entitled to act as a legal representative for the supplier;

(b) professional email address.

Users of EPREL accounts for suppliers and for market surveillance authorities shall provide the following information:

(a) first and last name;

(b) professional email address.

Article 20

Entry into force and application

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from the same day. Articles 3, 4, 5, 7, 11 and 15 shall apply from 22 October 2024.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.