Strasbourg, 22/05/2006 (Agence Europe) - On 17 May, the EP adopted the report by Zita Plestinská (EPP/ED, Slovakia) on the proposal for a decision to set in place a legal base for financing European standardisation. The European Standardisation Committee (CEN), the European Committee for Electro-technical Standardisation (CENELEC), and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) are the three European standardisation bodies. They have created over 15,000 European standards and specifications. Financing will be via subsidies without calls for proposals, these bodies being considered in the general interest of Europe and not entering into competition with other bodies at European level. On the other hand, the granting of subsidies for preparatory or accessory activities will be via subsidies without calls for proposals or public contracts.
The financing of European standardisation activities aims to ensure that the central secretariats of the three European bodies function as they should, and also ensures the development of European norms to support Community policies and legislation, and the promotion of European standardisation in the EU and third countries. Many economic activities linked to the manufacture of goods and the provision of services are the subject of standardisation, which is the case for health, security, consumer and worker protection, transport, information and communication technologies and their interoperability, and the defence and space industries.
The CEN supports the proposal to ensure a legal base for the financing of standardisation, Hermann Wahls, CEN General Secretary, states in a press release. He goes on to add that the CEN welcomes amendments proposed in so far as they reflect certain specific features of standardisation activity. He said this decision by the EP was welcomed as, once more, it recognises the contribution made by European standardisation to economic development in Europe, in the interest of European citizens. CEN, CENELEC and ETSI have recently appointed a second European standardisation expert for China, who will take up the post on 1 July 2006.
The role of European SMEs in the standardisation process must be improved and strengthened, the organisation NORMAPME, which represents small and mledium sized companies in the field of standardisation, states in a press release. It has produced guidelines to allow SMEs to be provided with affordable assistance and training, sufficiently upstream of the standardisation process. “Standards will no longer be perceived as imposed standards”, comments Hans-Werner Müller, General Secretary of the European Association of Craft, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (UEAPME).