The European Commission has issued a recommendation on a common framework
for a unique device identification system (UDI) for medical devices in the European Union (April 2013).
The goal of the commission is to create a unified product identification in order to improve the traceability of medical devices through the entire supply chain up to the patient. The recommendations published by the commission are to be taken into consideration by the national legislatives within the EU, if they decide on introducing such a regulation in their country.
The text can be found here:
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2013:099:0017:0024:DE:PDF