On Thursday 24 June, the CEN and CENELEC General Assemblies overwhelmingly agreed to revise the membership arrangements in their statutes, reflecting the UK’s departure from the EU. The agreement comes after careful consideration by the CEN and CENELEC members of the impacts of the UK’s exit from the EU on the European standardization system and on the organizations' membership statutes.
All CEN and CENELEC members, whatever the category, commit to adopt identically European Standards and withdraw national conflicting standards. This decision safeguards the principles of the European standardization system to provide seamless market access for our stakeholders and to reinforce the robustness of CEN and CENELEC and the achievement of the goals of the Strategy 2030.
The status of BSI, the British Standards Institution, in CEN and CENELEC is expected to be confirmed in November, following a membership assessment over the summer. This will enable BSI to transfer to a new category of full membership within CEN and CENELEC from 1 January 2022.
Putting new membership definitions in place will provide confidence for our stakeholders in the compatibility of standards across Europe. It will help businesses to trade in a settled system and supporting the UK’s contribution to the European and international standards landscape. The new provisions will maintain the way stakeholders engage with CEN and CENELEC, retaining all the rights in standards developing committees as now.
We will continue to keep stakeholders updated throughout the year on these developments.
Andreea GULACSI
agulacsi@cencenelec.eu
