The European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection has adopted an own-initiative report on a standardisation strategy for the internal market.

According to ECR rapporteur Adam Bielan, “in the future, stakeholders should guide technical work while the Commission participates in the process of tackling challenges on the spot”. MEPs recall that standards are a voluntary tool and should not be overused to force particular ideas on the technical level when implementing EU law. “We highlight the importance of the market-driven process that should stand behind those standards. Consequently, the standards should not be seen as EU law”, Bielan explained.

Both SMEs and civil society organisations should be better involved in standardisation. “That’s because standardisation has to ensure that products, services and processes meet certain quality and safety requirements, which is crucial for businesses and consumers alike”, Bielan said.

Greater efforts are also needed in international cooperation in this area: “In order to maintain our global trade momentum and considering global characteristics of certain sectors, such as digital, we need to ensure that standardisation can prevail at the international level, especially with our geopolitical partners such as the US, Canada and other like-minded economies. This is essential to ease competition for our businesses that want to scale-up and expand their operations beyond the single market”, commented Bielan.

One of the challenges Bielan sees for the EU is rapid technological change: “The EU will have to adapt quickly to ensure that standards keep pace with new technologies without putting constraints on innovation and development of new services”, he concluded.

The report was adopted with 38 MEPs in favour, none against and one abstention.