Samenwerking EU en Rusland voor harmonisatie product- en marktregulering (en)

Enterprises in the EU and Russia will find it easier to access respective markets, as the Russian and European standardisation organisations agreed today to intensify their cooperation and to have agreed standards for both areas.

Allowing a long term vision, this agreement can contribute to reach a level of cooperation enabling manufacturers to produce according to the same standards for a marketplace from Lisbon to Vladivostok. This is fully in line with the EU-Russia “Partnership for Modernisation”.

Today in the presence of representative of the European Commission, Deputy Director General Antti Peltomäki of Directorate General Enterprise and Industry, and the Russian Ministry of Industry, the European Standardisation Organisations CEN and CENELEC and ROSSTANDART, the Russian standardisation body, signed their first ever co-operation agreement.

European Commission Vice-President, Antonio Tajani i, responsible for industry and entrepreneurship said: "The EU and Russia have expressed a common interest in enhancing bilateral trade and investment opportunities and in facilitating and liberalising trade in the global economy as well as strengthening and developing competition. Today's signature is a big step forward to remove technical barriers to trade and to improve economic, scientific and technical exchanges. This cooperation strengthens the basis for standardisation in Europe, the Eurasian region and at international level!"

Common standards are the indispensable element that the on-going approximation of technical regulations between the EU, Russia and the Customs Union can create more favourable conditions for businesses.

The objectives of today's Agreement are

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  To promote communication between CEN, CENELEC and ROSSTANDART;
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  To promote mutual understanding of the role of standardisation organisations and of the activities on implementation of international standards;
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  To develop mutual technical cooperation on standards activities in the three organisations;
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  To provide mutual support and to promote the use of international standardisation, notably at ISO and IEC level, as a tool for harmonisation at regional and national levels.

The Partners will share knowledge and exchange best practices in the following areas: engagement with small and medium-sizes enterprises (SMEs), engagement with international and regional standardization bodies, and regulatory cooperation, as well as other areas of mutual interest to the Partners. To this end they will organise seminars, exchange work programmes and/or establish joint working groups in areas of common interest.

ROSSTANDART may also request permanent observer status in particular in CEN and/or CENELEC Technical Body(ies) of interest to it. Under this observer status Russia is encouraged to adopt European standards as national standards and to withdraw conflicting national standards.

For business today's signature means good news:

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  Reduced compliance costs and economies of scales will unleash new potential.
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  A positive signal for industry still struggling to find the way back to growth.
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  The co-operating agreement synchronised with the parallel discussions on approximation of technical regulations is a good example of the complementarity of policy and technical standardisation work.

Background

CEN and CENELEC are recognised European Standardization Organizations (ESOs) whose main objectives are to foster innovation and competitiveness, through the production of voluntary standards, removing technical barriers to trade and contributing to the welfare of European citizens.

ROSSTANDART is the officially recognised National Standardization Body (NSB) in Russia and in this capacity develops, publishes, sells and distributes national standards and other publications.

See also

Involvement in standard-setting makes small business stronger

China-Europe: Information on standards and market requirements