Project Partners

European Committee for Standardization (CEN)CEN, the European Committee for Standardization, is an association that brings together the National Standardization Bodies of 34 European countries. It was officially created as an international non-profit association based in Brussels on 30 October 1975.Its mission is to foster the European economy in global trading, the welfare of European citizens and the environment. CEN provides a platform for the development of European Standards and other technical documents in relation to various kinds of products, materials, services and processes.

CEN is one of three European Standardization Organizations (together with CENELEC and ETSI) that have been officially recognized by the European Union and by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as being responsible for developing and defining voluntary standards at European level.

The new EU Regulation on European Standardization has been adopted by the European Parliament and by the Council of the EU and will enter into force as from 1 January 2013. It provides the legal framework within which the European Standards Organisations (CEN, CENELEC, ETSI) will operate. The text of the new EU Regulation (1025/2012) is published in the Official Journal of the European Union (see Issue L316 of 14 November 2012).

These standards have a unique status since they also are national standards in each of its 34 Member countries. With one common standard in all these countries and every conflicting national standard withdrawn, a product can reach a far wider market with much lower development and testing costs. ENs help build a European Internal Market for goods and services and position Europe in the global economy. More than 60.000 technical experts as well as business federations, consumer and other societal interest organizations are involved in the CEN network that reaches over 600 million people.

CEN supports standardization activities in relation to a wide range of fields and sectors including: air and space, chemicals, construction, consumer products, defence and security, energy, the environment, food and feed, health and safety, healthcare, ICT, machinery, materials, pressure equipment, services, smart living, transport and packaging.

In a globalized world, the need for international standards simply makes sense. The Vienna Agreement − signed by CEN in 1991 with ISO (International Organization for Standardization), its international counterpart − ensures technical cooperation by correspondence, mutual representation at meetings and coordination meetings, and adoption of the same text, as both an ISO Standard and a European Standard.

For more information see: www.cen.eu

CENELEC:

CENELEC, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization, is an association that brings together the National Electrotechnical Committees of 34 European countries. CENELEC prepares voluntary standards in the electrotechnical field, which help facilitate trade between countries, create new markets, cut compliance costs and support the development of a Single European Market.

CENELEC supports standardization activities in relation to a wide range of fields and sectors including: Electromagnetic compatibility, Accumulators, primary cells and primary batteries, Insulated wire and cable, Electrical equipment and apparatus, Electronic, electromechanical and electrotechnical supplies, Electric motors and transformers, Lighting equipment and electric lamps, Low Voltage electrical installations material, Electric vehicles railways, smart grid, smart metering, solar (photovoltaic) electricity systems, etc.

CENELEC creates market access at European level but also at international level, adopting international standards wherever possible, through its close collaboration with the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), under the Frankfurt Agreement.

Through the work of its members together with its experts, the industry federations and consumers, European Standards are created in order to encourage technological development, to ensure interoperability and to guarantee the safety and health of consumers and provide environmental protection.
https://www.cencenelec.eu/about-cenelec/

ETSI:

The European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) is a leading international Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) standards organization, producing globally applicable standards for ICT, including fixed, mobile, radio, converged, broadcast and internet technologies.

ETSI is an independent, non-profit organization with a 30+ year track record of technical excellence in the ICT sector, and with a widely respected non-discriminatory IPR policy. Available to all, ETSI standards are freely accessible on ETSI website.

• Over 53000 standards published in total
• Over 1800 standards published annually
• 19 million downloads annually

ETSI has more than 900 member organizations worldwide, drawn from 65 countries and five continents. It’s diverse community includes private companies, research entities, academia, government and public bodies as well as societal stakeholders. At ETSI, large and small member organizations work together to create high quality standards – enabling interoperability in a multi-vendor, multi-network, multi-service environment.

As the effects of globalization permeate further and accelerate, ETSI is providing business and industry with efficient solutions for accessing and developing new and established world markets via standardization.

ETSI is officially recognized by the European Union to support EU regulation and policies, ETSI standards are key enablers for the Single European Market.
It has a special role in Europe. This includes supporting European regulations and legislation through the creation of Harmonised European Standards. Only standards developed by the three ESOs (CEN, CENELEC and ETSI) are recognized as European Standards (ENs).

At the forefront of emerging technologies, ETSI members collaborate to design tomorrow’s digital world. As a community, ETSI fosters close relationships with research bodies, addressing the technical issues that will drive tomorrow’s digital economy and improve life for future generations. ETSI organizes workshops, summits, and webinars to share the latest developments and innovations, and to explore new technologies in different sectors. ETSI members gain a competitive advantage through early adoption of the latest standards in R&D roadmap. Active participations help them to advance and promote new concepts within the community. 5G, Cybersecurity, M2M communications, Edge Computing, Network Virtualization, Artificial Intelligence, Quantum Safe Cryptography, Radio, Augmented Reality, Blockchain and Smart Cities are just some of the areas where ETSI is driving digital transformation.

ETSI members benefit directly from over 100 strategic partnership agreements driving global standardization with numerous fora and consortia, as well as international and regional standards developing organizations around the world.

ETSI is a founding partner of two major international partnership projects, 3GPP (https://www.3gpp.org/) and oneM2M (https://www.onem2m.org/), bringing together standardization bodies from Europe, China, India, Japan, Korea and the United States. The original scope of 3GPP was to produce globally applicable specifications for a system based on evolved Global System for Mobile communication (GSM™) core networks and the radio access technologies that they support. With more than 780 members, 3GPP today provides complete system specifications for cellular telecommunications network technologies up to 5G.

Bringing together more than 200 players from diverse business sectors, oneM2M was created to consolidate standardization of Machine-to-Machine and IoT functions. The group provides a horizontal layer of functions commonly needed across different market sectors as well as a framework to support applications and services for the Internet of Things.
https://www.etsi.org/about/about-us

Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry and Entrepreneurship (DG-INTPA) of the European Commission

The Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs is working to uphold and manage the Single Market for goods and services and to strengthen its governance. Its work helps ensure an open, seamless and resilient internal market, which is one of the cornerstones of European integration.

The DG supports the competitiveness, growth and resilience of the EU economy, while facilitating a transformative recovery from the coronavirus crisis. It focuses on strengthening the leadership of European industries across different industrial ecosystems, by leveraging the power of the Single Market and addressing strategic dependencies in our supply chains. In addition, it implements policies that sustain entrepreneurship and growth, in particular to the benefit of small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs), including facilitating access to funding and to global markets for EU companies.

The DG also leads efforts on digitisation and decarbonisation of European industry and SMEs. It contributes to the objective of turning the EU into a greener, more digital and more resilient economy, in line with the Commission’s priorities to build an economy that works for people and a Europe fit for the digital age.

DG-INTPA manages the implementation of the Single Market Programme (4.2 billion EUR from 2021 to 2027), which aims to strengthen the governance of the Single Market. This improved market surveillance will help to make the internal market work better including boosting the competitiveness of businesses, in particular SMEs. The Single Market Programme will develop effective European standards and advance international financial and non-financial reporting and auditing standards. It will also further raise consumer protection standards, maintaining high levels of food safety. DG-INTPA also manages parts of the Programme for Research and Innovation, Horizon Europe.

The DG’s work is organised around the 14 industrial ecosystems, the new paradigm integrating policy perspective across goods and services and the coordination hubs for cross cutting issues within the DG such as “green”, “digitalisation” or “standards”.
https://commission.europa.eu/about-european-commission/departments-and-executive-agencies/internal-market-industry-entrepreneurship-and-smes_en

European Free Trade Association (EFTA)

The European Free Trade Association (EFTA) is an intergovernmental organisation set up for the promotion of free trade and economic integration to the benefit of its four Member States – Iceland, Liechtenstein, Norway and Switzerland – and the benefit of their trading partners around the globe.  The four EFTA States are all open, competitive economies committed to the progressive liberalization of trade in the multinational arena as well as in free trade agreements.

Based on these overall goals, today EFTA maintains the management of the EFTA Convention (intra-EFTA trade), the EFTA Free Trade Agreements (third country relations) and the EEA Agreement (for the three EEA EFTA Countries). The EFTA Convention and the EFTA free trade agreements are managed from the Geneva office, the EEA Agreement from the Brussels office. In addition, EFTA’s Statistical Office in Luxembourg ensures close cooperation with EU’s Eurostat office.

The EFTA States jointly negotiate free trade agreements (FTAs) with partners outside the European Union in order to strengthen their competitive position and increase market access for their products. As a result, economic operators in the EFTA countries enjoy access not only to the EU’s internal market, but also to one of the world’s largest networks of preferential trade relations, which continues to expand thanks to an ambitious agenda of negotiations. Today, EFTA has 29 FTAs with 40 countries and territories outside the EU.

The agreements are based on and seek to promote the multilateral rule-based trading system, as embodied in the WTO. Although EFTA’s membership is small, it is a world leader in the promotion of free trade. The EFTA economies are also consistently high performers as to competitiveness, ranking among the top 30 most competitive economies worldwide.

The EFTA countries and the European Commission closely cooperate on creating and implementing a European standardization policy. This includes parallel financing of standards-related work carried out by CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. EFTA Member States use the same standards as EU countries and have the same conformity assessment procedures. In order to ensure that public authorities and enterprises in the EEA EFTA countries abide by the rules of the EEA Agreement, the EFTA Surveillance Authority has been established in Brussels, which has close contacts and cooperation with the Commission. The EFTA Court based in Luxembourg deals with infringement actions brought by the Surveillance authority against an EEA EFTA State with regard to the implementation, application or interpretation of an EEA rule.

For more information about EFTA and the EEA Agreement see: www.efta.int