Governance in Europe. The European Consumer Voice in Standardisation. Number 40 March 2002

Transcription

1 NEWSLETTER Governance in Europe 40 March 2002 TABLE OF CONTENTS Horizontal issues 2 Child safety 3 Design for all 3 Information society 3 Domestic appliances 4 Environment 4 Services 5 Traffic safety 5 News from ANEC 6 Miscellaneous 6 In late March, ANEC published its comment on the White Paper on Governance to input its experience gained from representing societal interest in standardisation as one model for co-regulation. This specific experience in societal representation concentrates the ANEC comments on the: Extension of the New Approach to non-technical areas Need for stakeholder involvement The New Approach to technical harmonization referred to in the White Paper as an example for co-regulation was introduced in European legislators are restricted to defining the essential safety requirements whereas the definition of the technical solution is left to the standards bodies. Need for review of New Approach ANEC recognizes the positive influence and the progress that has been made following the introduction of the New Approach to technical regulation in terms of completion of the Internal Market, free movement of goods, product safety, and consumer protection. With this in mind, ANEC urges the European Commission to review the New Approach before extending it to new policy areas, since the model developed for product safety might not be suitable for non-safety policies. Stakeholder participation THE ANEC NEWSLETTER IS ALSO AVAILABLE ON-LINE AT For the general acceptance of new modes of governance, it is essential that stakeholders and consumers are involved. ANEC stresses the importance of the democratic principle and therefore the legitimacy in European decision-making when applying alternative regulatory models. Resources are a crucial feature for fair stakeholder involvement. A general concern is the inherent imbalance between resources of industry and societal groups like consumers. It may be problematic to defend the public interest as the only representative amongst a group of industry representatives. Hence, ANEC does not believe in alternative regulatory models governed by industry alone. We consider it essential to have an over-arching legal framework, as public authorities must remain the ultimate guardian of the public interest. The European Consumer Voice in Standardisation

2 Horizontal Issues CEN General Assembly 2002 This year s General Assembly of CEN will take place in Lisbon on 9-11 October 2002 and will be followed by an Annual Meeting dedicated to the subject: European Standardisation Opportunity or threat for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises? ANEC Response to the Consultation on the New Approach In early 2002, DG Enterprise of the European Commission launched an online-consultation concerning selected aspects of the New Approach. The consultation document identifies the assessment, designation and surveillance of notified bodies, CE marking and enforcement measures, including market surveillance, as the key aspects that require revision. In collaboration with the Internal Market Directorate General, the Enterprise Directorate General constructed an interactive questionnaire based on a set of questions derived from the content of the consultation document. Instead of answering the online-questionnaire, which is primarily addressed to industry, ANEC gave a general comment along the lines of the consultation paper (ANEC2002/GA/010). While acknowledging the positive impact and the considerable progress that has been made following the introduction of the New Approach, ANEC regrets that the consultation paper in its foreword excludes the area of standardisation and in particular the issue of stakeholder participation and checks and balances in the system. In general, ANEC calls upon the European Commission to carefully revise the New Approach beyond the issues mentioned in the consultation paper before extending it to new policy areas as the model developed for product safety might not be appropriate for non-safety policies unless adjustments are made. For more information on the specific comments made, please consult 6 th Framework Programme for Research Preparation of first call for proposals The European Commission provides funds for research through a multi-annual framework programme for research. The new programme (FP 6) runs from the end of 2002 until FP 6 is supposed to be the main instrument for creating a European Research Area and aims at a new link between industry, research and society. FP 6 comprises new instruments: networks of excellence and integrated projects (IP). The latter are defined as serial modules, implying life-cycle design for a product or a service including standardisation and legislation. In other terms, an IP is supposed to be a tool for changing production and consumption patterns and targeted RTD on predefined societal problems. A network of excellence is defined as a political objective to ensure sustainable integration of national research capabilities and therefore is mainly funded by national public or private sources whilst the EU funds only integration of resources. To prepare for the upcoming calls, the European Commission is inviting to submit Expressions of Interest with respect to networks of excellence and integrated projects. This is supposed to help to set an agenda for research topics to be covered in FP6. For more information: ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March

3 Children's Environment and Health Child Safety For the second year, the European Commission's DG Environment is organizing a Green Week. From 15 to 19 April 2002, participants will be able to take part in numerous seminars and workshops and visit an array of exhibition stands. One of the big themes of this year's Green Week is "Children's environment and health". On Monday 15 April, there will be sessions on how children are affected by noise, children and mobility, and an overview will be given of current problems and actions on children's health and environment. Tuesday 16 April is completely dedicated to children and chemicals. For more details and information, please visit: Draft standard for child resistant cigarette lighters out for voting pren Lighters Child resistance for disposable and novelty lighters Safety requirements and test methods is currently out for voting in the European Standards Institute CEN. ANEC is actively lobbying for the acceptance of this draft standard. ANEC has been striving for several years now to get a European Standard for child resistant lighters as soon as possible. There is still opposition from the lighters industry because of possible enforcement problems. The European Commission (DG SANCO) has requested Member States' authorities to actively participate in the voting process in order to get the standard accepted. Design for All & Information Society ICT Standards Board DATSGG meeting 12 March 2002 ANEC representative Gill Whitney was elected to be the vice-chairman of the ICT Standards Board s Design for All and Assistive Technologies Co-ordination Group. In absence of the chairman, Ms. Whitney chaired this meeting successfully. The meeting report will be available soon. ETSI Operational Co-ordination Group in charge of Intelligent Homes and Buildings A number of ETSI Technical Bodies work on standards which can be relevant for Intelligent Homes and Buildings, which are mainly discussed in the context of design for all and assistive technologies. It is therefore necessary to exploit these standards for the specific aspects of this area. The ETSI Operational Co-ordination Group (OCG) has created an ETSI/OCG ad-hoc group for the co-ordination of Intelligent Homes and Buildings under the chairperson Reetta Riikonen from the ANEC Secretariat. A common eeurope website for CEN, CENELEC and ETSI initiated A common website of the three European standards bodies will be finalised shortly and will contain links to the relevant technical activities within the three organisations. A common online helpdesk is also envisaged, and will commence as soon as resources permit. ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March

4 Domestic Appliances Spring meeting of the ANEC Domestic Appliances Working Group The ANEC Domestic Appliances Working Group held its spring meeting in Brussels on 12 March A presentation was given on current certification activities in the electrotechnical sector. The group re-iterated its position that ANEC supports a single, third party testing certification mark. A member of the ANEC ICT Working Group was invited to update members on electromagnetic fields and radiation. Current standardization activities on surface temperatures, gas appliances, safety of machinery, electrical household appliances and electric tools were also discussed at the meeting. Finally a discussion was held on the future activity profile of the ANEC Domestic Appliances Working Group. There was agreement that the working group should concentrate more on preparing ANEC positions for important upcoming standardization meetings. Commission meetings on Energy Labelling of household appliances ANEC attended two meetings of the Commission's Regulatory Committee on Energy Labelling of household appliances. The first meeting was held in Berlin on 27 February, the second one in Brussels on 18 March. Agenda items at the first meeting were a draft standardization mandate for domestic water heaters, which ANEC supported, and the revision/updating of energy labels. Items discussed at the second meeting were energy efficiency of colour TVs and the update of the labelling for refrigerators and freezers. The discussion on the updating of the labels will go on at future meetings. Environment EEE Workshop The European Commission organised on 21 and 22 February 2002 a workshop on the proposed directive on Electric and Electronic Equipment (EEE). European Commission representatives, industry and consultants gave presentations. Parallel workshops on small and medium-sized enterprises, standardisation, life cycle analysis, data inventory and declaration took place. The ANEC representative participated in the workshop on standardisation and took the opportunity to repeat some of the concerns presented in the joint ANEC/BEUC/EEB position paper on the draft EEE directive. Most of the participants were from industry including industry consultants and had a favourable opinion on the EEE. The SME representative, however, expressed strong reservations. It was interesting to note that Mrs. Klingbeil (European Commission DG Environment) reported that a number of reservations were expressed regarding the use of the New Approach in the environmental field according to the comments they received on the IPP green paper. ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March

5 Safety of services Services and Standardisation The European Commission has identified five main areas as the principal areas of consumer policy on which the safety of services is to be considered. These are in the fields of: recognition of diplomas, certificates and other qualifications, transport, environment, energy and tourism. As a result of a compilation of a questionnaire from the Member States it was found that all member states have adopted extensive sector legislation with regard to the safety of core services. Policy varies significantly between Member States in other kinds of services, namely leisure and sport services. The European Commission s plans to conduct an evaluation of needs and opportunities for possible Community Action on the safety of services, which will include a qualitative comparative assessment of the benefits and burdens, an assessment of the legal and institutional implications of each option at national and Community level and the identification of any significant international trade aspects. World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations WP 29 Traffic Safety Consumers International participated in the March 2002 session of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UN-ECE) World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations (WP29). The meeting discussed pedestrian protection, which was seen as a priority issue that should be dealt with. Japan will be the first country to introduce pedestrian protection requirements into their national legislation in March If pedestrian protection is discussed in the context of a Global Technical Regulation, it is assumed that the poor technical compromise of the voluntary agreement between the European Commission and the European car industry would not be acceptable. On the other hand, if the pedestrian protection debate shifts to the UN-ECE, it is likely to become even more complex and difficult to finalise. The May 2002 meeting of the UN-ECE group of experts on passive safety (GRSP) will discuss the setting up of an ad hoc group on pedestrian protection. Consumers International asked at the March meeting of the UN-ECE WP29 that consideration be given to work on under-run guards for heavy vehicles. Such vehicles were grossly over represented within accidents resulting in the deaths of car occupants, and under-run predictably defeated the ever more sophisticated occupant protection engineered into the cars. Because of the number of lives that could be saved, it seemed regrettable that this measure, originally proposed by Consumers International, had not appeared on the work programme. Some countries are interested to bring this work to the UN-ECE WP 29 for inclusion in a Global Technical Regulation. ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March

6 News from ANEC Secretariat ANEC Programme Manager Claudia Seybold is on maternity leave from 25 March 2002 until 31 August She is replaced by Laura Asbjornsen ( who is dealing in Claudia s absence with the ANEC Working Groups on Environment and Traffic Safety, and the Coordination Group. Miscellaneous Forthcoming Meetings of Standards Bodies/Other Organisations Date Title April Green Week organised by the EC DG for Environment 18 European Commission, DG Trade: Dialogue with Civil Society Brussels 19 ANEC Design For All Working Group, Brussels 22 ANEC ICT Working Group Pre-meeting, Berlin 23 ANEC ICT Working Group, Berlin 23 Consumer Committee with Commissioner Bolkestein, Brussels Standards Out for Public Enquiry Date Title Reference Textiles Protective clothing against chemicals - Test methods and performance classification of chemical protective clothing materials, seams, joins and assemblages Protective clothing - Gloves and armguards protecting against cuts by powered knives - Requirements and test methods Horizontal Swimming pool equipment - Part 11: Additional specific safety requirements and test methods for moveable pool floors and moveable bulkheads Technical Committee pren CEN TC 162 pren CEN TC 162 pren CEN TC 136 ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March

7 Published Standards Health and Safety Date Title Reference Fire detection and fire alarm systems - Part 10: Flame detectors - Point detectors Technical Committee EN 54-10: 2001 TC 72 Latest National Standards Country Title Reference UK Specification for hole saws BS 8416 Austria Joints for gas distribution. Part 1: elastomer joints for taps in houses. M Latest ANEC Comments Child Safety Horizontal Issues Title Comment from ANEC on the "Guide for Regulation and Standards related to Child Accident Prevention in Europe", prepared by the European Child Safety Alliance. ANEC comments on the European Commission's White Paper on Governance ANEC comments on the Commission s consultation document on the review of the New Approach Reference (ANEC2002/0117) (ANEC2002/GA/010) (ANEC2002/GA/011) Further Information For comments, further information or if you wish to write an article for the ANEC Newsletter, please contact: Laura Asbjornsen (las@anec.org) European Association for the Co-ordination of Consumer Representation in Standardisation Avenue de Tervueren 36, box 4 - B-1040 BRUSSELS phone: fax anec@anec.org - internet: ANEC Newsletter no. 40 March