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The process of establishing new European standards is vigorous and involves specific steps including proposals, pubic comments, weighted votes, and implementation by CEN member countries.
Proposal
1. Any type of interested individuals, groups, or organizations can present a proposal for a European standard. The National Standards Bodies, European Free Trade Association, and European Commission present most standards proposals.
2. The most suitable European Committee for Standardization (CEN) committee takes into account the required time frame and available resources and decides whether or not to accept a proposal.
3. Once accepted, a proposal is converted to a standardisation project and assigned to a particular Working Group to compose a draft of the standard documents.
Public Comment and Weighted Vote Adoption
1. After a Working Group finishes the draft of a new standard, the documents are made public to enable outside parties to present their opinions. Throughout the stage of public commenting, all individuals that have a viable interest in the standard such as consumers, pubic officials, and manufacturers can present their opinion on the draft. The National Standards Bodies collects the comments and the CEN Technical Committee evaluates the responses.
2. The comments and opinions of the public are integrated into the revision of the draft and a final copy of the draft is created and presented to CEN Members to conduct a formal weighted voting procedure.
Adoption as a National Standard
Once CEN approves a standard draft, all of the National Standards Bodies implements the new European Standard as a duplicate national standard and removes any current national standard that clashes with the new standard. Therefore, once a new European standard is approved, it becomes a national standard in 31 CEN member nations.
European standards are sophisticated requirements that ensure products and services comply with certain specifications and they must undergo advanced procedures to ensure the safety and satisfaction of consumers and suppliers.
