The entry into force, since March 2008, of the new European normative concerning the specification criteria and the production system assessment for hot bituminous paving mixtures, have forced public administrations, producers and control laboratories alike, to deal with the necessary process of adaptation to such normative. In 2006 the specifications on hot bituminous mixes for road construction issued by the Spanish National Administration were still referring to the NLT testing procedures hitherto followed. Conscious of this problem, the Ministry of Public Works entrusted the Transportation Research Centre of CEDEX to perform a study aimed to identify and evaluate amongst the new European testing methods, those which were more suitable for substituting the NLT ones. By establishing the necessary correlations between testing procedures, new specification parameters for the materials would be finally obtained. This article focuses on the new European test to determine the water sensitivity of bituminous mixtures (EN 12697-12), describing the work involved in its study.