Primer on Standards - OEK - OVE

CENELEC Standards are of the highest quality because all interested parties areinvited to contribute to their development: manufacturers, consumers, environmentalistsand anyone who has anything to say or is concerned by standards.CENELEC Standards define the characteristics of electrotechnical products orservices. These characteristics usually determine the performance and safetyrequirements that are voluntarily agreed upon by the interested parties. But inthe electrotechnical field, things are more complicated and safety of consumersis the number one priority. The European Commission often encourages andsupports this safety policy, which leads us to the so-called harmonized standards.The participation of National Committees and the two-step approach (nationalconsensus building followed by consensus building among National Committees)contribute to the strength of CENELEC, reflecting the subsidiarity principle, andthe different cultures and views of Europeans in standardization as well. NationalCommittees play a very important role for they provide a platform for smallcompanies who, for financial and language reasons, can only participate atnational level.Output of CENELEC European StandardsCENELEC publishes every year a large amount of European Standards, EN’s, forthe electrotechnical field. But not all standards published are reflected in ouroutput statistics. In fact, CENELEC only counts as valid standards those that arecurrently active and stops counting those that have been withdrawn after thedate of withdrawal or DOW. Such a status provokes situations in which thepublication of a new standard (for which an old one is withdrawn) results in areal output of zero.In this sense, CENELEC ended up the year 2000 with a total of 3633 standardsin its portfolio. The overall figure one year later, at the en of 2001 was only 4004,meaning that the net output of standards in 2001 was 371 when reality showsthat the real output was 467. There is a gap of 96 standards missing, meaningthat they have been withdrawn.18 CENELEC. <strong>Primer</strong> on Standards