European Commission - Questions and answers Questions and answers on the new Standardisation Regulation Brussels, 6 October 2026 What is a standard and how are standards developed in Europe? A standard is a technical document that sets specifications for a product, service, or process. It is written by experts and then adopted by consensus. It covers a wide range, from the size of a sheet of A4 paper to the safety of...
European Commission - Questions and answers Questions and answers on the new Standardisation Regulation Brussels, 6 October 2026 What is a standard and how are standards developed in Europe? A standard is a technical document that sets specifications for a product, service, or process. It is written by experts and then adopted by consensus. It covers a wide range, from the size of a sheet of A4 paper to the safety of a child's toy or the compatibility of a phone charger. Many standards are voluntary, but even when voluntary businesses have a strong incentive to apply them. A product made to a recognised standard can be sold across the Single Market rather than need to be adapted to divergent national rules. It demonstrates safety and quality, ensures interoperability, and lowers costs. In Europe, standards are developed through a public-private partnership. The three European Standardisation Organisations (CEN, CENELEC, and ETSI) work with national standardisation bodies, with standards drafted by experts from industry, consumer organisations, employee representatives, civil society, academia, and public authorities. While the Commission does not write standards itself, it can request the drafting of standards to support EU legislation and help finance the system. Why are harmonised standards important for the Single Market? Harmonised standards are important for the Single Market because they translate EU legal requirements into one practical set of technical specifications that can be used across all Member States. Developed by CEN, CENELEC, or ETSI at the Commission's request, they give products and services a presumption of conformity with EU law once cited in the Official Journal of the European Union. This gives them a special legal role. By providing one recognised route to compliance, they reduce technical barriers to trade, support the free movement of goods and services, and make it easier and cheaper for businesses, especially small and medium-sized, to access the EU market while ensuring safety, interoperability and consumer trust. How will this help businesses, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises? The new Standardisation Regulation will reduce the time needed to develop a standard by one third and allow products to benefit from presumption of conformity sooner, facilitating market access and reducing compliance costs. They will also benefit from free access to standards supporting EU law. Smaller businesses will particularly benefit from faster standards, free access to them and easier market access. The proposal also requires national standardisation bodies to reduce the costs of taking part in standardisation for small and medium-sized companies. Who develops standards in Europe and what will change with the new Regulation? Standardisation in Europe relies on a public-private partnership. At European level, three officially recognised European Standardisation Organisations are responsible: CEN, covering most sectors; CENELEC, for the electrotechnical field; and ETSI, for telecommunications and ICT. They work with the national standardisation bodies of each Member State, and the technical content is written by experts from the industry (including from small or medium businesses), public authorities, consumer organisations, employee representatives, environmental organisations, academia, and other relevant groups. For content of international relevance, the European organisations cooperate closely with their global counterparts: ISO, IEC, and ITU. The new Regulation will retain the same system with one key improvement: the Commission, after consulting the European Standardisation Organisations, will be able to send standardisation requests to designated standardisation organisations. This will allow it to rapidly mobilise the requested expertise while preserving the central role of European standardisation organisations in the process. How will you increase the speed of standards development? We will speed up standardisation by making the system more agile, more predictable, and less bureaucratic. Concretely, this means faster uptake of high-quality existing specifications into European standards, clearer use of common specifications, and temporary presumption of conformity for certain emerging technical deliverables. We will also improve planning and accountability through better anticipation of needs, the implementation of key performance indicators, and real-time monitoring via a digital platform. Finally, we will introduce binding deadlines, simplify procedures and, under strict safeguards and with Member States' approval, allow alternative routes for certain Commission requests to be sent to Standardisation Organisations other than the three European Standardisation Organisations. How does the European standardisation system interact with international standards and what will the proposal change? The European and international standardisation systems are closely connected. Under a long-standing cooperation agreement, the Vienna Agreement between CEN and ISO and the Frankfurt Agreement between CENELEC and IEC, a large share of European standards are adopted from, or aligned with, international standards. This avoids duplication of effort and supports global trade, consistent with the World Trade Organization's principles on technical barriers to trade. At the same time, the EU is increasingly unable to rely on standards providing presumption of conformity in new strategic technologies such as AI, cyber, and batteries, while other economies move faster. This is one of the factors behind the proposal's emphasis on international coordination. The reform therefore promotes stronger Union coordination in international standardisation bodies, so that the EU can promote its interests and values more effectively as standard setting becomes more geopolitically significant. Will standards be free? How will European standardisation organisations finance standardisation if standards are free? Recent rulings from the Court of Justice of the EU established that standards referenced in EU legislation are part of EU law and therefore must be made available for free. Therefore, the proposal introduces a key change to the current standardisation system: harmonised standards and standards referenced in EU law would be freely accessible. Those standards in scope represent around 3,650 standards out of the 27,000 ones available on European standardisation organisations' catalogues. Harmonised standards only represent a small part of European standardisation organisations' revenues. ETSI standards are already free – and not only the harmonised ones. Digitalisation creates possibilities for European standardisation organisations to offer new services that both add values for standard users and create new sources of revenues for them. Will there be transition periods? Most major EU legislative changes include a transition period between adoption and application, giving businesses and authorities time to adapt. The exact duration will be set in the final legal act. When will the new rules enter into force? That depends on the legislative process. Typically, EU legislation enters into force after formal adoption and publication in the Official Journal of the European Union, with application beginning either immediately or after a set transition period. For more information Proposal for a new Standardisation Regulation Press release Factsheet QANDA/26/2071 <@rel_link@> Press contacts: Siobhan MCGARRY (+32 2 296 47 98) Rüya PERINCEK (+32 2 299 49 03) General public inquiries: Europe Direct by phone 00 800 67 89 10 11 or by email
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