The COVID-19 pandemic has taken a serious toll on the European economy: according to the European Commission, the EU economy is expected to contract by 7.5% in 2020. Swift and decisive action at the European level is therefore essential to address this historic downturn and relaunch the economy as soon as possible. The European Recovery Plan presented on 27 May by the European Commission, with its new Recovery Instrument ‘Next Generation EU’ and its objective to ‘invest in a green, digital and resilient Europe’ provides a much needed holistic approach.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC), together with their national members, welcome the Recovery Plan and its ambition to strengthen the Single Market and highlight the crucial contribution that European standards play in supporting the EU’s economy.

The European Standardization System constitutes one of the foundations of the Single Market, by working in support of European market harmonisation and making it more sustainable, easier and safer for citizens, companies and public institutions to buy and sell goods and services, travel across borders and rely on the same high level of services across Europe. These benefits are highlighted by the CEN and CENELEC Declaration “Standards Build Trust”, and were in full display in recent months, when CEN, CENELEC and their members made  available for free a series of European Standards (ENs) for medical devices and personal protective equipment used to fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.

International standards initiative oneM2M announced it has welcomed a range of new members as organisations around the world seek to accelerate the development of the Internet of Things (IoT) market through greater interoperability.  

A cybersecurity specialist, research institutes, service providers and the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid’s faculty of computer science are among the latest companies to join the organisation. The newest additions to oneM2M’s vast membership come from America, Asia, Europe and Russia, demonstrating the relevance of its standardization efforts across the globe.

“2020 is shaping up to be a year when increased levels of collaboration between global organisations, institutions and companies really accelerate mass adoption of the IoT across a range of sectors,” said oneM2M Steering Committee Chair, Enrico Scarrone. “We are already working in partnership with the IoT Connectivity Alliance (ICA) and have recently set out how we will be collaborating with the Industrial Internet Consortium (IIC). The breadth of expertise and geographic spread of our new members will further add to our global knowledge base and effort as we build the levels of seamless interoperability needed to drive forward a technologically agnostic and secure platform for the IoT.”

ETSI has announced the creation of a new Industry Specification Group addressing Non-IP Networking (ISG NIN). The kick-off-meeting took place on 25 March and John Grant, BSI, was elected as the ISG Chair, and Kevin Smith, Vodafone, was elected as ISG Vice Chair. The new group will supersede an existing ETSI group for Next Generation Protocols (ISG NGP), created in 2015 to look at networking technology needs in the upcoming 5G era.

With the increasing challenges placed on modern networks to support new use cases and greater connectivity, Service Providers are looking for candidate technologies that may serve their needs better than the TCP/IP-based networking used in current systems.

ETSI has released its 2020-2021 work programme. In ETSI we are constantly exploring new ways to make the development of standards faster and more efficient. Our FORGE platform, for example, gives developers free access to open-source code produced by our members. And as we have already seen this year, the need for effective virtual collaboration between individuals and teams has never been keener.

At the start of 2020 we had little idea just how abruptly our own operational processes would shift. The devastating societal impact of the coronavirus has imposed profound challenges on every organization. As our own modus operandi evolves, so does the scope of ETSI’s standardization activities.  

This Work Programme highlights some of the technical areas attracting the attention of our members with new groups created, including new networking protocols (Non-IP networking), 5th generation fixed networks and the security of Artificial Intelligence-based systems. To help tackle the pandemic, we launched E4P, Europe for Privacy-Preserving Pandemic Protection, an Industry Specification Group initiated to develop specifications that will ensure the interoperability of Covid-19 tracing applications throughout Europe.

CEN and CENELEC have published  Annual Reports for 2019. The Annual Reports consist of three parts: the joint CEN and CENELEC activities and one each individual report for CEN and CENELEC. Taken together, they present the main achievements accomplished in 2019 in European standardization.

Indeed, 2019 was an impactful year: the renewed EU institutional setting, the whirling trade discussions and Brexit have presented all organisations and businesses with new challenges and opportunities. Digitalisation and innovation have imposed themselves as a new constant in our daily lives. Furthermore, the global coronavirus pandemic has shown how urgent it is for all organisations to become resilient and adaptable to sudden changes. This situation provided even more evidence of the essential role that standards play in protecting citizens and providing safe and innovative market solutions.

The 59th Annual Report of the European Free Trade Association has been published. The report contains an overview of the functions and activities of EFTA throughout 2019 in the areas of managing the EEA Agreement, EFTA’s worldwide network of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and the EFTA Convention.

2019 was marked by the 25th anniversary of the EEA Agreement, which entered into force in 1994. To celebrate this historic year, the EFTA Secretariat, together with the three EEA EFTA States, organised a series of high-level events and promotional activities. The most important event took place on 22 March, when the EEA EFTA Prime Ministers were invited to take part in a summit of the European Council, reaffirming their commitment to participate jointly in the Internal Market.