25 November 2021
The CEN and CENELEC General Assemblies, meeting today in Palermo, Italy, have overwhelmingly confirmed the British Standards Institution’s (BSI) continued membership of the two associations from 1 January 2022.
This decision follows careful consideration by the CEN and CENELEC members, taking into account the impact of the UK’s exit from the EU and is consistent with the Trade and Cooperation Agreement (TCA) agreed between the UK and the EU.
Continued BSI membership provides clarity and confidence for CEN and CENELEC’s stakeholders in the role of standards across Europe. It will help businesses to trade in a settled system and will support the UK’s long-term contribution to European and international standards. All CEN and CENELEC’s stakeholders, including those from the UK, will continue to participate and contribute to standards development as today.
Elena Santiago Cid, Director General of CEN and CENELEC, said:
“With the UK’s exit from the EU, the overriding priority for CEN and CENELEC was to maintain the stability of the standardization system in Europe. This decision is a welcome reassurance to our stakeholders as it safeguards the principles of the European standardization system based on the adoption of European standards and the withdrawal of conflicting national standards, to provide seamless market access across Europe including in the UK, and to reinforce the future robustness of CEN and CENELEC.”
BSI’s Director-General, Standards, Dr Scott Steedman commented:
“This decision offers our stakeholders in the UK clarity and certainty that they will continue to be able to influence the development of European and international standards through the CEN and CENELEC system. UK stakeholders will continue to be able to work in all CEN and CENELEC standards developing committees and chair those committees as they do now. Working with our 33 fellow CEN and CENELEC members at European and international level supports our common interests including increasing global trade, addressing the threat of climate change and seizing the opportunities presented by emerging technologies. The UK government recognises the importance of international standards developed by ISO, IEC and ITU and reflected at European level through CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. The UK’s new system of designated standards is based on the same set of European and international standards that are used as a voluntary means of compliance with regulation across Europe”.
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