The new European legislation on machinery and the Safety and Health Laboral entail the observation by which a machine must comply with technical protective devices for safeguarding against hazardous motions.

The current Directive 98/37/EC gathers the basic requirements that machinery guards must provide, highlighting the following:
- be of robust construction
- not to give rise to any additional risk
- not to be easy to by-pass or render non-operational
- enable essential work to be carried out on installation and/or replacement of tools

Related Standards:

EN ISO 12100 Safety of machinery. Basic concepts.
General principles for design. Basic terminology and methodology.

UNE-EN 953 Safety of machinery. Guards.
General requirements for the design and construction of fixed and movable guards.

UNE-EN 811 Safety of machinery.
Safety distances to prevent danger zones from being reached by the lower limbs.

UNE-EN 294 Safety of machinery.
Safety distances to prevent danger zones from being reached by the upper limbs.