Today, the European Commission published its proposal for the New Standardization Regulation, which would repeal Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012. CEN and CENELEC support the objective of making European standardization faster and more effective. However, several elements of the proposal risk weakening the very system it seeks to improve. Reform should strengthen, not fragment, the successful system Europe already has.
For decades, this independent, consensus-based public-private partnership has brought together industry, SMEs, public authorities, consumers, researchers and societal stakeholders through national participation. It has delivered the safety, interoperability and trust businesses need to innovate and operate across the Single Market. It also enables European expertise and technologies to contribute to international standards and compete globally.
The legislative discussion should therefore focus on four priorities to keep the European Standardization System a strong and sustainable asset for Europe’s competitiveness:
- Preserve an independent and predictable system. The public-private partnership, national delegation and consensus-based development of standards must remain at the heart of the system. Governance must remain stable and predictable to preserve stakeholder engagement and technical expertise.
- Address the actual delays that slow down delivery. Europe needs standards faster, but reform should address the real bottlenecks before and after the technical work: the preparation of standardization requests and the assessment and citation of harmonized standards. Redirecting work to other organizations would risk duplication rather than acceleration.
- Avoid parallel routes and fragmentation by building on existing structures. Europe does not need parallel standardization routes. Existing external specifications can already be integrated into the European standardization process through the CEN and CENELEC Standardization Hub, which provides a pathway to bring relevant external specifications into the European system while ensuring quality, transparency and stakeholder participation. Openness to global expertise and an international-first approach strengthen European competitiveness. Unnecessary restrictions or divergence would reduce quality, create hurdles for European exporters and reduce Europe’s ability to contribute to international standards.
- Make wider access sustainable and trustworthy. CEN and CENELEC support wider access to standards, provided that a sustainable funding model, copyright protection and safeguards for integrity and traceability are maintained. We welcome the proposal's recognition of the need to protect standards from mass extraction.
CEN and CENELEC stand ready to work constructively with policymakers and stakeholders to deliver a faster and more responsive standardization system. The revision should reinforce the qualities that make European standardization an asset for competitiveness: independence, consensus, national participation, financial sustainability and global reach.
Ulrika Francke, CEN President, said: “Europe needs standards faster to support innovation and competitiveness. But greater speed will not come from weakening the public-private partnership or making its governance less predictable. The revision should build on the expertise, consensus and national participation that have made European standardization work.”
Riccardo Lama, CENELEC President, said: “European companies need standards that help their technologies scale across the Single Market and succeed globally. Parallel routes and unnecessary divergence from international standards would make that harder. Europe should strengthen its standardization system and its global reach – not fragment them.”
