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The European Parliament and the Council of the European Union have decided that platform lifts fall under the jurisdiction of the Machinery Directive 98/37/EC and will henceforth fall under the new forthcoming Machinery Directive 2006/42/EC.
So in legal terms a platform lift is a machine and not a lift.
Under the Machinery Directive, a platform lift is considered to be an Annex IV machine. For travel heights exceeding 3 metres, a platform lift must pass an EC Type examination which must be performed by an approved European Notified body. It must carry an EC Declaration of Conformity and be CE-marked before it can be legally placed on the market within the EC Member states.
The Machinery Directive is one of the most extensive of the European Commissions "New Approach" directives. It has 16 Articles and 7 Annexes. The Articles cover general items such as the scope and definitions, placing products on the market and putting them into service, free movement of CE marked goods within the EC Member states, reference to harmonised standards, vigilance and incident reporting, conformity assessment procedures, systems and procedure packs, Authorised Representative, consequences of wrongly affixed CE Marking, etc.
Annex I
Describes in full detail the Essential Requirements mandatory for all Machinery,
Subassemblies or Components.
Annex II
Lists the exact contents of the EC Declaration of Conformity.
Annex III
Describes the particulars of how the CE Mark is to be placed on Machinery, Subassemblies or Components.
Annex IV
Identifies the Machinery, Subassemblies or Components that require EC type
examinations by approved Notified Bodies.
Annex V
Instructs the way the EC Declaration of Conformity application is to be handled by the manufacturer.
Annex VI
Explains what the results of the EC Examination mean.
Annex VII
Identifies the minimum criteria for an approved Notified Body. | 
