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Working in Partnership
Working with Europe Collaboration between the ESOs
We value our partnership with the European Commission Co-operation and collaboration with CEN and CENELEC
(EC) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) highly. continued in 2016. We participate in the CEN and CENELEC
As a European Standardisation Organisation (ESO), we Technical Boards and attend their General Assemblies. The
provide world class standards and specifications to support Joint Presidents’ Group ensures management level
European Union (EU) legislation and public policies. co-ordination, in addition to direct links between our
technical committees. By working together on appropriate
In 2016 we worked on a number of existing EC mandates and topics, especially those which are the subject of EC
accepted a further three standardisation requests: M/543 standardisation requests, we ensure that industry benefits
(material efficiency aspects for energy-related products in from a more integrated European standardisation system.
support of the implementation of Directive 2009/125/EC),
M/544 (Ecodesign requirements for networked standby) In 2016 we continued to work closely together in areas
and M/546 (Urban Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)). We such as ITS, smart energy, smart metering and electronic
also commented on draft standardisation requests that signatures, to ensure the development of a coherent set
were under preparation, including for web accessibility, and of standards and to avoid the duplication of effort and
on the draft Annual Union Work Programme for European overlapping work. Other significant areas of activity in
Standardisation which will be used as a planning tool to 2016 included electromagnetic compatibility, combined
prepare for possible future standardisation requests and equipment, energy efficiency and accessibility, cyber security
actions. and the Internet of Things (IoT).
The major mandated activity in 2016 covered the
development and production of candidate Harmonised Working with NSOs
Standards under M/536 in support of the Radio Equipment We partner in our role and responsibility as an ESO with
our network of National Standards Organisations (NSOs).
Directive for which we have developed a large work About half of the NSOs are also members of ETSI, but all
programme with ambitious target time schedules. perform the important task of organising national approval
procedures for our European Standards (ENs). In addition,
We completed phase 2 of mandate M/460 for electronic NSOs are in close contact with local industry in their
signatures, and continued to work on the issue of enhanced countries, especially with small businesses. NSOs distribute
emergency calls (M/493). We began significant new work in our standards, they act as information points on the status of
response to M/530 (privacy and personal data protection our work, and may even accompany local Small and Medium-
management). We co-operated with the European sized Enterprises in their first steps in standardisation. Most
Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the European of our NSOs are also members of CEN or CENELEC, and
Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) in therefore play a part in ensuring alignment between our
relevant areas. work and that of these other ESOs, especially in fields where
ICT is an enabling technology for other industries.
We participated in all of the meetings of the EC’s Committee
on Standards that took place in 2016 and all four meetings In 2016 we continued to meet with the NSOs prior to each
of the Information and Communications Technologies meeting of our General Assembly to exchange information.
(ICT) Multi-Stakeholder Platform. We regularly took part These meetings also cover more detailed discussions on
in meetings of the Task Force on the Rolling Plan for ICT specific technical subjects of interest to NSOs, and on the
Standardisation and contributed to the drafts and final processes related to ENs and Harmonised Standards. We
outcome for the anticipated ICT Rolling Plan 2017. We began a consultation on the EN Approval Process, with the
continued to attend as an observer at various Member State goal of improving the balance between the timely production
committees and their working groups. of standards and allowing sufficient time for the NSOs to
review and comment, and then for us to process those
comments.
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