Joint call to CEN and CENELEC – time to give civil society a stronger voice in standardisation
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By Environmentalists, consumers, trade unions, and SMEs demand a more prominent role in European standardisation as CEN and CENELEC are expected to review their governance structure and rules.
Organisations ECOS, ANEC, ETUC, and SBS call for a more significant representation of societal interests in the European Standardisation System. These organisations are officially tasked by EU law to represent environmental interests, trade unions, consumers, and SMEs in European standardisation.
Despite being officially recognised stakeholders, our effective participation in the process is not sufficiently guaranteed. As a result, society’s interests are currently not adequately represented in the development of standards in Europe. In a document sent to CEN and CENELEC leadership on 12 December, the four organisations offer recommendations on how to ensure their effective participation in the process.
As part of the EU Strategy on Standardisation, European standardisation organisations such as CEN and CENELEC have been formally requested by the European Commission ‘to modernise their governance to fully represent the public interest and interests of SMEs, civil society and users’. They must put forward proposals to do so by the end of 2022. It is an ideal moment to improve the inclusiveness of the process. In our paper, we compile our proposed solutions for good governance practices to do just that. Even though standardisers have improved inclusiveness in some aspects in the last few years, there is still room for much more progress.
ECOS, ANEC, ETUC, and SBS have been an official part of the European Standardisation System (ESS) since 2012. However, interests are still unevenly represented today, with industry accounting for the lion’s share of the influence on standard-making. The decision-making processes and operations in European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs) do not yet solve these problems.
Our demands for CEN and CENELEC:
- National standardisation must enable the participation of civil society and support its effective engagement. The lack of systematic and active facilitation of the participation of the civil society organisations (representing the environment, workers, consumers, and SMEs) within national standardisation bodies has a knock-on effect on adequate representation in standards developed at all levels (nationally, at the regional level, and globally).
- Conditions framing the interplay between European and international standards must be revisited. ECOS, ANEC, ETUC, and SBS are not guaranteed a seat in international technical committees where standards are developed. This is particularly urgent in cases where international standards are adopted as European standards.
- The rights of civil society organisations within CEN and CENELEC must be further reinforced. Today, we have ‘access’, but we must be granted effective participation at the national and European levels. Participation needs not only to be simply possible and passively supported, but actively encouraged and effectively facilitated. We call on CEN and CENELEC to create an ‘Associate Membership’ category for ANEC, ECOS, ETUC and SBS. Such a term may also help improve the recognition and understanding of civil society organisations in technical bodies within international standardisation bodies ISO and IEC.
CEN and CENELEC are not the only organisations that should update their processes and reinforce inclusiveness in their work methods. In parallel, civil society representatives are also working with standardisation organisation ETSI, focused on telecommunications, on the necessary modifications to reinforce the weight of civil society and SME interests in the development of their standards. We put forward a proposal in March, which is currently being discussed within ETSI.
