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Operational notes Regulation

Machinery Regulation: in Italy the language of the manual is still unset

8 min read

Handwheel of a rusted industrial valve, seen close up, black-and-white photograph
The valve has not moved. The pipe running from it, though, has a deadline.

From 20 January 2027 the European rules on machinery change in full: we have checked this line by line, in the date the corrigendum corrected and in how artificial intelligence found its way in. The Italian apparatus meant to accompany that date starts from a different point. Three textual facts, all verified by us on Normattiva and on EUR-Lex’s consolidated text, stand to be placed side by side without drawing legal conclusions from them: the penalty table now in force has not been updated since 2012; the delegation meant to rewrite it expires on 9 October 2026, eleven days before Italy must notify Brussels of the new penalties; and the workplace-safety code still points, to establish when a modified machine remains the same machine, to a decree that Normattiva itself flags as repealed for sixteen years.

The decree that punishes today has been frozen since 2012

Article 15 of Legislative Decree no. 17 of 27 January 2010 — the decree through which Italy transposed the Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC — is today’s penalty table. The record of the act, on Normattiva, reads: «Entrata in vigore del provvedimento: 06/03/2010 (Ultimo aggiornamento all’atto pubblicato il 03/08/2012)» — entry into force: 6 March 2010; last update published 3 August 2012. Sixteen years in force, frozen at an update from fourteen years ago: the version in force as of 31 August 2026 records no amendment after 2012.

The amounts: 4,000–24,000 euros for placing on the market machinery that fails Annex I — which covers the manual’s content, point 1.7.4; 3,000–18,000 euros for partly completed machinery breaching Article 10; 2,000–12,000 euros, under two heads, for withholding the technical file and for compliant machinery lacking a declaration of conformity; 1,000–6,000 euros, under two more heads, for misleading CE marking and for advertising non-compliant machinery. Paragraph 7 adds a correction mechanism, verbatim: «Le sanzioni di cui al presente articolo si applicano se il 10 per cento del fatturato connesso a tutte le macchine o quasi-macchine per le quali la violazione è accertata è compreso tra il minimo ed il massimo della sanzione da applicare ovvero è inferiore al minimo» — penalties apply if 10% of turnover on the non-conforming machinery falls within or under the range — and in any case «la sanzione applicata non può superare l’importo massimo di 150.000 euro» — never above 150,000 euros. Paragraph 9: «Le sanzioni di cui al presente articolo sono irrogate dalla competente Direzione generale del Ministero dello sviluppo economico» — imposed by the competent Directorate-General of the Ministry of Economic Development.

The delegation, two dates in October, and a scar in the European text

Law no. 36 of 17 March 2026 — the 2025 European delegation law, published in the Official Gazette no. 70 of 25 March 2026 — delegates the Government to act. Its Normattiva record shows the measure entering into force on 9 April 2026. Article 9(1) does not fix the delegation’s deadline with a date, but with a duration: «Il Governo è delegato ad adottare, entro sei mesi dalla data di entrata in vigore della presente legge, uno o più decreti legislativi per l’adeguamento della normativa nazionale e, in particolare, del decreto legislativo 27 gennaio 2010, n. 17, alle disposizioni del regolamento (UE) 2023/1230» — within six months of entry into force, decrees aligning national law — Decree 17/2010 in particular — with Regulation (EU) 2023/1230. Six months from 9 April 2026 land on 9 October 2026.

Paragraph 2 lists the guiding criteria. Letter c) is where the Italian legislature writes, in a national act, the date corrected by the corrigendum: «prevedere una disciplina transitoria per assicurare la commerciabilità dei prodotti immessi sul mercato prima del 20 gennaio 2027 conformemente a quanto previsto dalla direttiva 2006/42/CE» — transitional rules safeguarding products placed on the market before 20 January 2027 under Directive 2006/42/EC — 20, not 14: the Italian law does not inherit the error of the uncorrected CELEX text of the Regulation. Letter d) closes the loop with the table above: «aggiornare il sistema sanzionatorio per la violazione delle disposizioni in materia di sicurezza e conformità delle macchine e integrare le nuove fattispecie sanzionatorie derivanti dall’attuazione del regolamento (UE) 2023/1230» — update penalties for machinery safety and conformity breaches and add the categories the Regulation introduces. And letter f), the one closest to whoever writes a manual: the Government must «determinare, ai sensi degli articoli 10, paragrafo 7, 11, paragrafo 7, 15, paragrafo 2, lettera c), e 16, paragrafo 2, lettera b), nonché dell’allegato III, parte B, punto 1.7.1, del regolamento (UE) 2023/1230, la lingua in cui deve essere redatta la documentazione prevista dalle medesime disposizioni» — determine, under the Regulation’s Articles 10(7), 11(7), 15(2)(c), 16(2)(b) and Annex III(B)(1.7.1), the documentation’s required language — Annex III, Part B, point 1.7.1 being the assembly instructions for partly completed machinery. Less than five months before the Regulation applies, the language a manual sold in Italy must use remains a matter for the delegation: no Italian rule sets it today.

The European text carries a scar on the same dates too. The corrigendum published in the EU Official Journal L 169 of 4 July 2023 corrects fourteen dates in the Regulation, thirteen of which shift by six days. One is the exception: point 12, on Article 54, third paragraph, letter b), does not shift the date by six days but corrects it from «14 ottobre 2023» — 14 October 2023 — to «20 Ottobre 2026» — 20 October 2026 — a jump of three years, with the capital letter on «Ottobre» already in the corrigendum’s own text — Italian month names are ordinarily lower-case, hence the anomaly. The consolidated text 02023R1230-20260727 confirms it, marking both points with ►C1…◄: Article 50(2) requires notifying the penalties «entro il 20 ottobre 2026» — by 20 October 2026, lower-case; Article 54, third paragraph, letter b), sets — «20 Ottobre 2026», capitalised — when that obligation to establish penalties starts applying. A full-text search confirms the capitalised «Ottobre» occurs once in the entire act. Eleven days separate the Italian delegation’s deadline from the notification to Brussels: 9 and 20 October 2026.

The cross-reference that survives every update

The third fact sits on the side of whoever uses the machine, not whoever builds it. Legislative Decree 81/2008 — Italy’s consolidated workplace-safety act — carries, in its Normattiva header, the note «ultimo aggiornamento all’atto: 23/03/2026» — last update: 23/03/2026 — five months ago, the latest in a long series of amendments since 2008. Article 71(5) is not among the parts that update touched. It sets out when modifying a machine to improve its safety does not amount to a new placing on the market, and still points to «l’articolo 1, comma 2, del decreto del Presidente della Repubblica 24 luglio 1996, n. 459» — Article 1(2) of Presidential Decree 459/1996 — the same cross-reference that, on the manufacturer’s side, underpins the threshold for a substantial modification under the new Regulation.

That decree, opened today on Normattiva article by article, no longer holds its own text. Article 1 reads, in full: «((PROVVEDIMENTO ABROGATO DAL D. LGS. 27 GENNAIO 2010, N. 17))» — ((MEASURE REPEALED BY LEGISLATIVE DECREE NO. 17 OF 27 JANUARY 2010)). The same wording, verified also on Article 4, appears on all eleven articles of the decree: 459/1996 is repealed by the very decree whose penalty table we set out above. The cross-reference today points to a decree that, article by article, says nothing but «abrogato» — repealed.

Three facts, one window of time

A penalty decree untouched since 2012. A delegation expiring on 9 October 2026 — eleven days before the penalties are notified to Brussels, and one hundred and three days before the Regulation applies, on 20 January 2027. A cross-reference that sixteen years of updates to the workplace-safety code, the latest of them five months ago, have still not touched. They stand side by side, uncommented: what they entail, in a penalty proceeding or in litigation, is a matter for legal counsel, not for a note like this one.

Whoever sells machinery in Italy today works on two tracks at once: Directive 2006/42/EC remains the basis for sanctionable non-conformity until 20 January 2027, but the Regulation that replaces it already imposes, on whoever is designing a manual meant to stay valid beyond that date, requirements the 2010 decree does not know and that the delegation still has to translate into Italian law. The document review we offer reads technical files and manuals requirement by requirement, under the rules in force today and under the ones still to come, and flags where the text fails to cover either regime.

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