Lifts are subject to the EU-level harmonisation legislation - making this sector a major user of harmonised standards. The sector is an important voluntary contributor (in terms of expertise) to the European standardisation system. To support the application of EU law, the European Commission requests ‘harmonised standards’ that are made officially available for use following publication of their titles in the Official Journal of the EU (OJEU). However, in recent years the procedure prior to publishing these standards in the OJEU has become highly bureaucratic and complex, impacting the smooth operation of the Internal Market. CEN/TC 10 suffers also from this approach where candidate harmonised standards need revision after revision to satisfy the Commission needs, leading to significant delays in their citation.
For this reason Orgalim has responded to a Commission consultation regarding the implementation of the Regulation on standardisation with a request for an independent assessment of the legal basis, proportionality and impact on stakeholders of the Commission’s formal decisions for the citation of harmonised standards in the OJEU. Orgalim together with several European associations is calling on the Commission to launch a thorough discussion among the key stakeholders – including the European technology industries – to restore mutual confidence and trust in the European standardisation system, to bring value to and perspective for all parties involved.
In addition to answering the questions raised in the consultation, the position paper presents a detailed analysis of the Commission's role and responsibility at the various steps of the European standardisation process to support the application of EU law, from the standardisation requests to CEN, CENELEC and ETSI until the final checks of harmonised standards prior to their citation in the OJEU. Orgalim concludes by putting forward 15 constructive recommendations towards finding common ground on the legal prerequisites for the application of Regulation 1025/2012 on European standardisation.
Download the paper here to read the comments in full.
https://www.orgalim.eu/position-papers/internal-market-restored-mutual-trust-market-relevant-european-standardisation