The Guide for referencing standards has been developed in the frame of the Joint Initiative on Standardization within JIS Action 11 ‘Pilot Project on Increased use of Standards in Public Procurement to better implement the public procurement Directives’, under the leadership of the Swedish Standards Institute (SIS), and has been financed by the European Commission. It aims at guiding public procurement officers across Europe on how they can better reference standards in public procurement. The Guide has been drafted with inspiration gathered from similar guides published in Spain and in Denmark in 2017 and with the support of the consultancy organization DanSense. This material was redeveloped, evaluated and scrutinized by an expert panel in three separate rounds in 2018. 

At the World Economic Forum in Davos, 76 partners - the European Union and 48 other members of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) decided to start negotiations to put in place global rules on electronic commerce.

WTO rules on e-commerce will aim to enhance opportunities and address challenges of e-commerce in both developed and developing countries. The negotiations should result in a multilateral legal framework that consumers and businesses, especially smaller ones, could rely on to make it easier and safer to buy, sell and do business online. The new rules would for instance:

• improve consumers' trust in the on-line environment and combat spam
• tackle barriers that prevent cross-border sales
• guarantee validity of e-contracts and e-signatures
• permanently ban customs duties on electronic transmissions
• address forced data localisation requirements and forced disclosure of source code

European Committee for Standardization (CEN) published a new standard EN 17161:2019 ‘Design for All - Accessibility following a Design for All approach in products, goods and services - Extending the range of users’. This European standard aims to help organizations align with a consistent approach to address accessibility for persons with disabilities. It specifies requirements that can enable an organisation to design, develop and provide products, goods and services that can be accessed, understood and used by the widest range of users including persons with disabilities.’

This standard is the result of the European Commission Standardization Request M/473 to include ‘Design For All’ in relevant standardization initiatives. The requirements set out in this standard are generic and are intended to be applicable to all relevant parts of all organizations, regardless of type, size or product(s), good(s) or service(s) provided.

The Commission has announced an investment programme worth over €10 billion for low-carbon technologies in several sectors to boost their global competitiveness.

EU innovative climate action has a range of benefits for the health and prosperity of Europeans with an immediate, tangible impact on people’s lives – from the creation of local green jobs and growth, to energy-efficient homes with a reduced energy bill, cleaner air, more efficient public transport systems in cities, and secure supplies of energy and other resources.

The Commission aims to launch the first call for proposals under the Innovation Fund already in 2020, followed by regular calls until 2030. The Innovation Fund will pool together resources amounting to around €10 billion, depending on the carbon price. At least 450 million allowances from the EU Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) Directive will be sold on the carbon market in the period 2020-2030. The revenues of these sales depend on the carbon price, which is currently around EUR 20.