The European Electrotechnical Committee for Standardization is one of three European Standardization Organizations (together with CEN and ETSI) that have been officially recognized by the European Union and by the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) as being responsible for developing and defining voluntary standards at European level.
CENELEC enjoys close cooperation with its international counterpart, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC). In order to facilitate a consensus-finding process between European and international standards development activities in the electrical sector, CENELEC and IEC formalized the framework of their cooperation through the signature in 1996 of an 'agreement on common planning of new work and parallel voting', known as the Dresden Agreement.
The main purpose of the CENELEC-IEC cooperation is to avoid the duplication of work and to reduce time when preparing standards. As a result, new electrical standards projects are jointly planned between CENELEC and IEC, and where possible most are carried out at international level. This means that CENELEC will first offer a New Work Item (NWI) to its international counterpart. If accepted, CENELEC will cease working on the NWI. If IEC refuses, CENELEC will work on the standards content development, keeping IEC closely informed and giving IEC the opportunity to comment at the public enquiry stage. CENELEC and IEC vote in parallel (both organizations are voting in the same time) during the standardization process. If the outcome of the parallel voting is positive, CENELEC will ratify the European standard and the IEC will publish the international standard.
After 20 years of a fruitful partnership that has resulted in a very high level of technical alignment (close to 80% of CENELEC standards are identical to or based on IEC publications), CENELEC and IEC have reconfirmed their longstanding cooperation on 17 October 2016, by signing the Frankfurt Agreement. Building on the experience of both partners, this new agreement preserves the spirit and approach conveyed by the Dresden Agreement, in particular the strategic commitment of CENELEC to supporting the primacy of international standardization. It includes several update aiming to simplify the parallel voting processes, and increases the traceability of international standards adopted in Europe thanks to a new referencing system.
Download the CENELEC Guide 13 FAQ - Frequently Asked Questions on the Frankfurt Agreement