The European Commission is reviewing the Outdoor Noise Directive (2000/14/EC) (OND). As part of this review process, CEN and CENELEC – two of the officially recognised European Standardization Organizations (ESOs) – recently published a new position paper to share their advice on the topic.
In the paper, CEN and CENELEC recall that, although in their previous position from 2018 on the same topic they had proposed to use the New Legislative Framework (NLF) model for the forthcoming revision, this solution was not deemed possible by the European Commission’s expert group on the directive, because of its specificities. Instead, two alternative options were proposed by the European Commission: a full revision (which would require longer time) or a delegated act (shorter).
In the new paper, CEN and CENELEC support a mid-term solution. While they recognise that a delegated act solves the most urgent matter, which is to update the references of standards in the Directive, they draw attention for inspiration to the solutions used for Ecodesign: in that sector, the EU regulations set the limits, including the ones for noise, whereas the dedicated test methods for measuring requirements from the regulations are provided by harmonised standard.
This example indicates that an alternative solution to having the references of standards inserted directly in the legal act is already existing, and should therefore be considered for application.
