Talks are underway in Europe about whether knuckle boom/loader cranes of over 150Tm capacity should come under the EN13000 standard rather than EN12999 for safety reasons.
The controversial discussions will be led by a new harmonization group created by Workgroups 2 and 11 of CEN TC 147, the part of the European Committee for Standardization responsible for overseeing crane standards.
Loader cranes have to date been covered by the EN12999 norm, but several European organisations have expressed safety concerns at their increasing size and have questioned whether the bigger loader crane models should be covered by EN13000 instead.
ESTA Director Ton Klijn said: “We have long been worried that the EN12999 was not appropriate for the biggest loader cranes now on the market, and that they should really come under the EN13000 norm. So we greatly welcome the opportunity for the different parties to come together and discuss this issue for the benefit of all of us.
“For ESTA, our goal is to align the EN13000 norm with the construction norms for both tower cranes and knuckle boom cranes. This new harmonization group is now consulting the industry to see how the concerns can be resolved.”
WG 11 is currently working on updates to the EN13000 norm that it expects to complete in the third quarter of 2021.