The EU regulation on European standardization (1025/2012) has certainly contributed to making the European Standardization System more inclusive. However, while at the European level significant efforts have been deployed to facilitate the direct access of societal stakeholders, trade unions still face many challenges when trying to participate at the national level.
This is highly relevant as it is in fact the National Standardisation Bodies (NSBs) who hold the voting rights both at the European and international level. In practice, the inclusiveness of the European standardisation system is largely dependent upon the participation of all interested stakeholders, including trade unions, at national level, that is within the mirror committees at NSB level.
The ETUC, the European Trade Union Confederation, therefore commissioned a study on the access conditions, which aims at looking in more detail at the barriers trade unions face when trying to engage in national standardisation activities. The study will focus on the access conditions to the process (i.e., standardization) and on the access to the documents (i.e., standards) at national level.
The contract to carry out the ETUC study was awarded following a call for tender at the beginning of October, and the final report is expected by the beginning of 2022.
For more information, please contact Natalia GIORGI
