NEWS

On 14 July 2021, the General Court of the EU ruled in the Public.Resource.Org, Inc. and Right to Know CLG v European Commission case (T-185/19) that the European Commission is right to deny free access without charge to harmonized standards (hENs).

Standards+Innovation Awards are back for their third year. The Awards celebrate the contributions of researchers, innovators and entrepreneurs to standardization and acknowledge the important contribution of research and innovation to standardization. This year they include the annual Project Award, presented to a European research / innovation project (H2020 / Horizon Europe) who successfully contributed to standardization, and Individual researcher/innovator Award, presented to an individual who successfully introduced her/his research outcome or innovation into standardization.

On 3 June 2021, CEN and ASD-STAN, the dedicated body for standardization in the aerospace sector, launched the public enquiry for prEN 4709-001 ‘Aerospace series - Unmanned Aircraft Systems - Part 001: Product requirements and verification’. This document provides technical specification and verification method to support compliance with Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/945 of 12 March 2019 on unmanned aircraft systems (UAS, popularly known as ‘drones’) and on third-country operators of UAS. This includes compliance with product requirements for all UAS authorised to operate in the ‘open’ category (class C0, C1, C2, C3 and C4 UAS).

CEN and CENELEC look forward to the European Commission's proposal to revise the General Product Safety Directive (GPSD), the main piece of legislation on consumer protection, which is due for 30 June.

On Thursday 24 June, the CEN and CENELEC General Assemblies overwhelmingly agreed to revise the membership arrangements in their statutes, reflecting the UK’s departure from the EU. The agreement comes after careful consideration by the CEN and CENELEC members of the impacts of the UK’s exit from the EU on the European standardization system and on the organizations' membership statutes.

The European Project SESEI (Seconded European Standardization Expert in India) is one of the most important dialogue projects on standards, established by the three European Standards Organizations, the European Commission and EFTA.

The Africa-Europe Science and Innovation Summit, organized by AERAP (the African-European Science Collaboration Astronomy Platform), will be held virtually from June 14 to June 18, 2021.  Within the content of this Summit, CEN and CENELEC, two of the official European Standardization Organizations, will present the dedicated session “Standards - Supporting innovation in Africa - How do standards foster innovation and economic prosperity?” on 17 June.

CEN and CENELEC are looking for Working Groups to pilot the new online platform for drafting deliverables collaboratively.

This year’s edition of the EU Green Week, which is beginning today, 31 May, is dedicated to the “zero pollution ambition”. Every year, millions of people are directly or indirectly affected by air pollution in the European Union. The transport sector is one of the major causes of its pollution and it deeply impacts the health of the population, and particularly of people who live in areas of very intense traffic.