New regulations in the EC

Hot on the heels of the "CE" marking scheme (somewhat analogous to
the USA's FCC in terms of the requirements it places on
susceptibility to/generation of EMI), as of 1 July next year it will
be illegal to "put onto the market" (i.e., manufacture & put in the
distribution chain within the European Community) products that do
not comply with the RoHS directives that relate to the (non-) use of
supposedly hazardous chemicals in electronic/electrical equipment.
The main consequence of this legislation that is of interest to the
CNC fraternity is that lead-bearing solder is one of the materials
that will be verboten, not only for soldering components together,
but also for "tinning" the legs of components in manufacture, etc.

Consequently, my guess is that many (most?) of the familiar
electronic devices that get talked about in the various CNC-related
fora will fall outside the new regulations.

Any comments? Is this going to be a problem for us Europeans that
want to continue building CNC machinery, or have the US-based
suppliers already got their act together on this? Is the EC a big
enough market to make it worthwhile making the effort?

I have to declare a personal interest, as I manufacture an indexing
device that currently isn't compliant with the new regs, and I am
looking at the implications (if I'm lucky it could be just a change
in manufacturing process, but if I can't source compliant components,
I could be facing a re-design).

Regards,
Tony