Jyrki Katainen – Photo EC
(BRUSSELS) – A new Communication on standardisation, adopted Wednesday by the European Commission, aims to ensure that Europe remains a global hub for standardisation.
From the A4 paper size to GSM technology, standards reduce costs, promote innovation, ensure interoperability between different devices and services, and help companies to access markets.
Largely voluntary and industry-driven, the Commission says European standards need to keep pace with the changing economy, the increasing importance of services, and the digital revolution.
The Commission today presented its vision on how European standard setting should evolve in the light of technological developments, political priorities and global trends.
It also announced its next steps on the Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS), which aims to reinforce the partnership between the European institutions and the standardisation community.
Europe needs to speed up and better prioritise standard setting across the board, says Jyrki Katainen, Commissioner for Jobs, Growth, Investment and Competitiveness: “With today’s standardisation package, we are helping raise competitiveness, power innovation and create a predictable and stable investment framework in the EU.”
Elzbieta Bienkowska, Commissioner for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, added: “The Joint Initiative on Standardisation brings together public and private organisations in a collaborative, transparent and agile dialogue process to ensure the timely development of state-of-the-art standards in support of fast changing market needs and public policies.”
While standards are often seen as mostly technical issues, standards are seen as important economic drivers. The Communication, says the Commission, presents a vision for a single and coherent EU standardisation policy which features higher on the political agenda and where the priorities are regularly discussed with the European Parliament and the Member States.
Today’s package includes a Commission decision providing the framework for the Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS), set to be formally launched on 13 June in Amsterdam under the Dutch EU Presidency. The JIS will bring together European and national standardisation organisations and bodies, industry, SMEs, consumer associations, trade unions, environmental organisations, Member States and the Commission.
These partners will commit to modernising, prioritising, and speeding up the timely delivery of standards by the end of 2019. The JIS will better align standard setting priorities with research and innovation impetus, with support from the EU research and innovation programme Horizon 2020. The JIS will also promote the use of European standards at international level.
The proposal for a 2017 work programme for European standardisation identifies the services and ICT sectors as priority areas for future standard-setting, given their cross-cutting role in the economy.
While services account for 70% of the EU economy, service standards only account for around 2% of all European standards. The fragmentation of standards acts as a barrier to the cross-border provision of services. Complementing other initiatives under the Single Market Strategy to facilitate the cross-border provision of services, the Commission propose to prioritise and promote the targeted development of voluntary European service standards. Examples of services standards include terminology on hotels and other tourism accommodation.
Standards are technical specifications for products, production processes, services or test-methods. Standards facilitate the interoperability of economic operators in the value chain. For example, the standards on paper sizes (A3, A4, A5) facilitate the interaction between consumers, paper and envelope manufacturers, printing houses and photocopier makers. A standard provides technical certainty, a pre-condition for economic operators to invest. For some products, such as airbags or surgical masks, standards also guarantee high quality and safety.
Standard setting in Europe is largely industry driven. While standards are developed by a standards organisation, the market may also simply adopt the technical specifications developed by one company or by professional organisations.
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