Cooperation between the international and European standards organizations

Standardization has long ceased to be a purely national matter; it should be coordinated on the widest possible international base. Special rules apply to the parallel development of standards at international and European level.

Two agreements promoting cooperation between the international and European standards organizations have been in place for many years. The Vienna Agreement governs cooperation between ISO and CEN. For standardization in the electrical sector, IEC and CENELEC recently updated the basis for their cooperation with the Frankfurt Agreement.

The Vienna Agreement between ISO and CEN

An agreement between ISO and CEN concerning technical cooperation was reached in 1991 and amended again in 2001. The agreement opens up several modes of cooperation between ISO and CEN Technical Committees (TCs) sharing a common technical remit. The relevant committees can conclude cooperative agreements themselves, differing in their depth. The first level of cooperation is limited to the transfer of information in each direction. The second level involves representation on each other’s committees. In the most comprehensive form of cooperation, the committees develop their standards jointly and adopt them in parallel. It is also possible for a cooperative agreement not to be reached at all.

The two TCs can decide to work together on developing a standard as soon as a proposal for it is made in one of the committees. In this case, the lead is assigned to one of the two TCs, working sessions are held in this TC, and the standardization process takes place in accordance with this TC’s rules. In general, responsibility for the lead lies with the ISO committee concerned. The non-lead committee may delegate up to four observers. During the draft phase, comments from one committee can be submitted to the other through these observers.

The core element of the Vienna Agreement is parallel voting. This means that the public enquiry and final voting on the draft standard take place in parallel at ISO and CEN. If the results of the public enquiry and final voting are positive in both organizations, the standard can be published in identical form as an ISO and EN standard. If the required agreement is not reached in one of the two organizations, consultations are launched between ISO and CEN to determine whether joint work on developing the standard is still worthwhile. It is also conceivable for only one of the organizations to publish the standard; in this case, a corresponding identical standard is not produced. Should the vote in both organizations be negative, the draft is returned to the responsible committee.

Frankfurt Agreement between IEC and CENELEC

A similar cooperation agreement, the Frankfurt Agreement, exists between the standards organizations IEC and CENELEC. Cooperation between the two organizations was launched in 1991 with the Lugano Agreement. This was updated in 1996 in the form of the Dresden Agreement and followed in turn in 2016 by conclusion of the Frankfurt Agreement, which is still in place today. The Frankfurt Agreement accords fundamental priority to international standardization in the field of electrical engineering. This is attained through a range of measures.

If a need for standardization activity is identified at European level, it is first determined whether the standard can be developed at international level by IEC. Where the need for standardization is not limited to the European level, development by IEC ensures that publication of an international standard is the direct result.

Parallel voting is the rule in the relationship between IEC and CENELEC, and does not require a dedicated agreement between the TCs. The European public enquiry at CENELEC is usually initiated as soon as IEC submits a draft to a public enquiry. The same applies to final voting. The only exceptions to this are when the CENELEC Technical Board (BT) fails to see a need for the standard in Europe, or where draft amendments are made to IEC standards that have not yet been adopted at European level. If a standard is developed independently by CENELEC, for example where a corresponding IEC committee does not exist, it is submitted to IEC for potential transposition into an international standard. Here too, parallel voting can be initiated.

Impacts at national level

The members cast their national votes in the ISO, IEC, CEN and CENELEC ballots. The majorities that must be reached in order for drafts to be adopted in the public enquiry and at final voting differ from organization to organization. If the standards are adopted only at international level, the members are also free to publish them at national level (in Germany, for example, in the form of DIN ISO standards). If the international standards are adopted at European level, however, the member organizations of CEN/CENELEC are obliged to adopt them in identical form at national level (for example in the form of DIN EN ISO standards), and to withdraw any conflicting national standards. This mechanism is what lends the Vienna Agreement and Frankfurt Agreement their particular importance for national standardization work.

Future prospects

Whereas in the past, international standardization activity was strongly influenced by western industrial nations, new powerful players have now entered the arena. China, in particular, has recognized the importance of industry, service and management standards and is increasingly occupying key positions (chairs and secretariats) on the international committees. This is supported by the “Belt and Road Initiative”, in whose course strong economic ties are being forged to emerging and developing economies worldwide. Although the involvement of European experts in standardization remains very high, it is increasingly under pressure owing to the time and costs that it entails.

In the meantime, at least at ISO, a trend can be observed towards more and more standards being developed. ISO standards now number over 25,000; at the beginning of 2017, this figure was still around 21,000. However, the understanding of standardization and its areas of application varies. Many countries view standards as a means of establishing a body of rules in areas where, as yet, they lack legislation or regulations. To ensure that standards presenting a low threshold do not subvert the existing body of regulations in Europe, careful scrutiny is required of which international standardization projects are suitable for adoption at European or national level.

Freeric Meier
meier@kan.de

Katharina Schulte
schulte@kan.de