Standardisation strategy

The EESC:

• welcomes the European Commission's Communication on the future of EU standardisation in the global context;
• believes that it is essential to guarantee an inclusive, balanced approach that fully enables all interested and affected stakeholders to participate,
• sees the danger that, in other regions in the world, standardisation has become an "industrial policy" tool or geopolitical instrument;
• welcomes the 22 proposed measures, including setting up a high-level forum to better coordinate stakeholder interests, creating the post of the "chief standardisation officer", calling for governance reform in ESOs, setting standardisation priorities for the twin green and digital transformations, and speeding up standardisation processes.
• calls on ESOs to modernise their governance in order to fully represent the European public interest and democratic values, as well as the interests of SMEs, environmental and social stakeholders, trade unions, and civil society and users, and to facilitate access to standards.

• underlines the need for increased funding from European and national authorities to all those involved in standardisation, such as trade unions, civil society organisations and companies, to improve their abilities to participate in standardisation work.

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat.