Eurocodes

At present, take-up of Eurocodes is slow on private sector projects and existing national codes are still widely used by engineers.

Within this action programme, the Commission took the initiative to establish a set of harmonised technical rules for the design of construction works which, in a first would serve as an alternative to the national rules in force in the member states of the European Union (EU) and, ultimately, would replace them.

For fifteen years, the Commission, with the help of a steering committee with representatives of the member states, conducted the development of the Eurocodes programme, which led to the first generation of European codes in the 1980s.

This links de facto the Eurocodes with the provisions of all the Council's Directives and/or Commission's Decisions dealing with European standards (e.g. Regulation (EU) No.

By 2002, ten sections have been developed and published: Each of the codes (except EN 1990) is divided into a number of Parts covering specific aspects of the subject.