Report on Harmonisation of freshwater biological methods

8. Standards, which receive positive support at the formal vote stage, are publishedin the Official Journal of the European Union. At this stage they are automatically theEU reference method and must be published by the national member bodies, unlikeISO standards where publication is discretionary. CEN does not publish its ownstandards. This is done through the national member bodies.9. The whole process between the acceptance of the new work item (NWI) and theformal vote must be completed within 3 years.B. PUBLISHED CEN STANDARDS RELEVANT TO THE IMPLEMENTATION OFTHE WFD AND THE INTERCALIBRATION PROCESS10. A number of EN standards exist that are directly relevant to the implementation ofthe WFD and these are tabulated in Table 1.11. Several features of this tabulation should be noted. Firstly, not all of the standardslisted were elaborated in CEN/TC 230.12. Several of the standards are referred to as ISO EN. These standards may havebeen elaborated under a CEN or ISO lead but were subsequently co-adopted by thetwo standards bodies under the Vienna Agreement. The date of publication for theISO and EN may not be the same as processing and publication of the final drafts maynot be identical.13. In common with ISO, CEN has now adopted a 5 yearly review of standards toensure that they remain relevant and fit for purpose. The review encourages memberbodies to give an opinion as to whether the standards are still representative of thestate of the art (confirmation), whether they need to be revised to meet current needsor if they are no longer necessary in which case they recommend withdrawal.14. An obvious example of this process is with the invertebrate sampling standardscited in the WFD. EN 27828 - handnet sampling, EN 28265- quantitative samplersand EN ISO 9391 - deep water sampling -were published under an ISO lead butadopted in CEN. These are under revision in order to ensure their relevance to WFD.The drafts are being revised in CEN but will be published under an ISO lead, as thesewere originally ISO documents.105