NEWS
The European Commission has confirmed that the revision of the Standardization Regulation (EU Regulation no. 1025/2012) will be carried out in parallel with the revision of the New Legislative Framework Regulation and the Market Surveillance Regulation, resulting in a package of the European Product Act (EPA). CEN and CENELEC support this approach to ensure alignment with the three Regulations to strengthen European quality infrastructure.
CEN and CENELEC welcome the European Commission’s initiative to revise Directive 2014/24/EU on public procurement with the aim of increasing simplicity, flexibility, and transparency.
Europe faces growing geopolitical pressures and a rapidly evolving defence landscape. To build a resilient and competitive European defence sector, standardization must be integrated early and systematically into defence policy, planning, procurement, and capability development.
The war in Ukraine has made defence a top priority for Europe. Numerous policies focus on increasing European defence capabilities through greater cooperation and coordination of national defence forces, developing measures for interoperability, joint procurement, reducing industrial fragmentation, and strengthening supply chains.
The current lack of a dedicated, strategic framework for European defence standardization is an important opportunity to engage defence stakeholders and ensure standardization is focused on meeting their urgent and long-term needs.
The European space sector is undergoing rapid expansion driven by increasing demand for space-based data and services. To support a competitive and innovative internal market, the European Commission proposed an EU Space Act. The initiative aims to harmonize rules for space operators, improve space object tracking, strengthen cybersecurity, and establish a common method for assessing environmental impacts, ensuring legal certainty and safeguarding the long-term use of space.
Standards are a proven instrument to operationalize EU legislation while reducing regulatory burdens and supporting SMEs. By building on the New Legislative Framework (NLF), the CEA can rely on harmonized standards to provide presumption of conformity with legal requirements, while leaving room for innovation. The consultation has identified barriers to a more integrated circular economy, including divergent classifications of waste and secondary raw materials, weak competitiveness of recyclates, insufficient transparency on recyclability and material composition, and resource loss due to inefficient collection, sorting and data gaps. Today, divergent national practices undermine the single market. Standards can directly address these challenges by establishing common definitions, quality criteria and testing methods across Europe.
Following the 2022 evaluation of the New Legislative Framework (NLF), the NLF, though a cornerstone of EU product legislation harmonization, was found to require modernization for the digital age and support European circular economy objectives. The 2025 Single Market Strategy further confirmed the need for this revision, alongside other legislative initiatives relating to Single Market Policy, including the standardization regulation and the Fourth Package of the Omnibus, on aligning product legislation with the digital age. During this revision, it is essential that these reviews are coordinated to ensure consistency, synergy, and simplification across the EU’s regulatory product framework.
Regulation 1025/2012 on European Standardization is the key legal framework that facilitates the effective public-private partnership between CEN and CENELEC and the European Union/EFTA. Regulation 1025/2012 is currently undergoing evaluation by the European Commission, including a public consultation via a questionnaire that took place on the Have Your Say platform from 2 May 2024 to 25 July 2024.
CEN and CENELEC are excited to share their Declaration for the next legislative cycle. In it, the two organizations call upon the European institutions to commit to priorities that enable a well-functioning Single Market supported by a strong European Standardization System.
With the release of his much-anticipated report on the future of the Single Market, Enrico Letta has provided the opportunity for Europe to reconsider its approach to this cornerstone of the European Union. CEN and CENELEC share the ambition of a revitalised Single Market and are pleased to see the recognition of standardization as a means to realize this goal.
Today, 5 March 2024, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) delivered its judgment in Case C-588/21 P concerning public access to four Harmonized Standards under Regulation 1049/2001.