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The current first generation of Eurocodes is a suite of ten European standards for the design of buildings and civil engineering works, whose implementation started in 2010. EN 1990 sets the basis of structural design, with the other Eurocodes dealing with different materials and specific aspects of design. Geotechnical aspects of design are covered by EN 1997 "Geotechnical design", usually called Eurocode 7. The evolution of the Eurocodes started in 2012 and the main objectives of their revision were to incorporate improvements that reflect the state‐of‐the‐art in engineering design and the needs of the civil engineering market, to improve the ease‐of‐use and to harmonize practice between countries. While the original version was developed largely based on soil mechanics, the aim was that the revised version treats soil and rock on an equal basis. The second generation of the Eurocodes is now nearly finished, and the revised EN 1997 is expected to be formally approved in 2024. This paper is the first of a set of six informative papers on the revised Eurocodes and rock engineering, prepared by members of the Rock Engineering Platform of CEN/TC250/SC7, a group of rock engineering experts that has been assisting in drafting EN 1997 from a rock‐engineering perspective. The paper presents the main changes to EN 1990 and EN 1997 as far as they affect geotechnical and rock engineering design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]