§ 2 The legal basis of the ATEX Directive : application guide 2nd edition of the ATEX 2014/34/EU directive

§ 2 The legal basis of the ATEX Directive

The legal basis of the ATEX Directive 2014/34/EU is provided by Article 114 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU)^[1] (ex-Article 95 of the EC Treaty)^[2][3] that enables the European Union to adopt measures to harmonise the legislation of the Member States in order to ensure the establishment and functioning of the single internal market. Such measures must take as a basis the highest possible level of protection of the health and safety of people and of the environment. The Directive thus has a dual objective: to permit the free movement of products with the internal market whilst ensuring a high level of protection of health and safety.

Following the proposal by the European Commission, the Directive was adopted by the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union after consulting the European Economic and Social Committee, according to the ordinary legislative procedure (formerly known as "co-decision") set out in Article 294 of the TFEU.

The footnotes to the citation give the references and dates of the successive steps of the procedure. The text of the ATEX Directive 2014/34/EU was published on the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) L 96, 29.3.2014, p. 309.