NCF Chair Arnold Pindar represented European consumers at a meeting of the European Economic and Social Committee in Brussels on 5 November 2019. He attended as past President of ANEC, the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation and welcomed the progress that has been made particularly in ensuring that consumers participate effectively in the European Standardisation System (ESS), and to discuss where further progress is needed to improve inclusivity.
Participation in Standards Needs Resources
Consumers have always been able to take part in standardisation activities if they have the resources to do so. Very few countries are able to support consumer participation in standardisation activities and most rely on ANEC to champion consumer interests for them. Fortunately in the United Kingdom, the British Standards Institution has a Consumer and Public Interest Network that coordinates and funds expenses to allow consumers to take part in many of the working groups developing standards primarily for consumer protection.
The Right of Opinion
Even so, it is not possible for consumers to be represented in every committee that includes issues of consumer interest. Hence a major advance in the European Standardisation System has been the recent introduction of a “right of opinion”. This allows ANEC and European organisations representing environmental and trade unions to ask committees at key stages in the development process to look again at their drafts to ensure they (in ANEC’s case) fully protect consumers.
ETSI Refusal – NCF says ‘Think Again’
The two main European Standards Organisations, CEN (general standardisation) and CENELEC (electro-technical standards) have agreed with this additional process. However, the third Europe-wide standards organisation ETSI (Telecommunications Standards), although it has adopted some measures to improve inclusiveness of these weaker stakeholders, has refused to implement this “right of opinion”. NCF calls on ETSI to think again.
Internationally Inclusive?
Another concern Arnold raised at the meeting is that more and more European standards are developed or revised at international level. He questioned who should take responsibility for ensuring the European standards, adopted internationally comply with the European Standardisation Regulation (1025/2012), particularly as regards to inclusiveness of all stakeholders’ interests?