We are now closing the first year of SBS’ work for the interests of SME in the European standardisation system. Many activities were held throughout the year, many of which are referenced in this newsletter.

As this is the last newsletter of the year, we would like to thank all SBS members for their support in defining priorities and ensuring that the voice of SMEs is heard – in technical committees, but also in all meetings in which SBS participated. This first year was also one welcoming new members: CNA, IFD, EVH, and CEETTAR.

Part of this year’s strategy was to enhance our association’s visibility, and this was also accomplished in the last quarter through Project Manager Sandrine Laurent’s participation in the ICADA conference in November, where standardisation for cosmetics was discussed with ICADA’s members. SBS also participated in the CEN-CENELEC conference ‘Standards: your innovation bridge’ and had a bilateral meeting with CEN-CENELEC Director General and Vice President in order to enhance collaboration.

2014 is also a year of achievements to be celebrated but also one of preparation for the future to come. SBS’ new strategy for 2015, with a considerable increase of activities, has been submitted to the European Commission. The 2015 Work Programme is a continuation of the 2014 goals, approved by SME organisations as crucial for their competitiveness, combined with new instruments aiming at increasing the communication and information process flow between SMEs and the standardisation community. This work programme covers the one year period from 1st January 2015 to 31st December 2015.

Last but not least, in the name of SBS, I would like to wish all readers an excellent Christmas and more importantly an SME- friendly standardised 2015 year!

SBS General Assembly

2

Call for experts 2

SBS collaborates with ESOs

2

German National Seminar

3

ETSI elects SBS candidates

4

SBS opposes right of appeal

4

SBS participate in CEN BT

5

2nd Coordination

meeting

5

SBS in EU standardisation

6

Horizontal services 6

SBS experts

training

7

UEAPME

construction forum

7

CPR

implementation

7

Technical News 8

Inside this issue

SBS Newsletter

N.6 December 2014 English version

End of year note from President Almgren

Page 2 N.6 — December 2014

Early December, SBS published a call for experts for TCs in CEN, CENELEC, ISO and ETSI to enlarge its SME representation in the Standardisation Technical Committees (TCs). The deadline for applications is set to 12th January 2015.

Over the course of 2014, SBS has already appointed 37 experts to pertinent Standardisation Tech-nical Committees (TCs) of SME relevance and wishes to appoint more to additional TCs where SBS is not yet represented. Therefore, SBS is seeking to appoint 12 new paid experts, co-funded by the EC, in Standardisation Technical Committees of SME relevance.

This new call is transparent and open to all organisations (members and non-members) represent-ing SMEs in Europe (at national and/or European level) and in EFTA countries (members and non-members), and also to independent experts under certain conditions. The experts, to be ap-pointed a one year contract, will be selected to represent SBS based on candidate profiles, relevance for SMEs and diversity of the TCs.

SBS collaborates with ESOs

Throughout this first year, SBS has worked hard on closely collaborating with ESOs. To name a few accomplishments: 37 SME experts nominated in Technical Committees, four seminars sup-porting the information flow towards organisations and the crucial participation of SMEs in the drafting phases of standards. SBS has also been able to better position SMEs towards all stakehold-ers as well as to collaborate with ESOs and the EC. Moreover, SBS has proved its ability, as an An-nex III Organisation (according to Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012), to defend and promote best practises and positive initiatives towards SMEs. Small and medium size enterprises represent 99.8% of European enterprises and it is of the utmost priority for the coming year to ensure that they are properly and adequately represented, promoted and supported in the European Standardisation System.

Through an increased collaboration with CEN-CENELEC and ETSI, SBS provides specific train-ing and support to its experts and a broader transfer of knowledge towards organisations. SBS is grateful for such successful collaborations with CEN-CENELEC and ETSI.

SBS calls for experts for Standardisation TCs

SBS Members met for the second General Assembly of the year on 11th December. It was an important General Assembly during which the new Work Programme for 2015 was approved. The WP 2015 sets priorities and activities to be achieved by SBS over the course of the year. CNA and DTV, two member organisations, have been welcomed to join the SBS Board. Additionally, Mr Bollens – Acting head of Unit – gave an overview of the European Standardisation System, an intervention strongly welcomed by the General Assembly.

SBS General Assembly Outcome

Page 3

The aim for 2015 is to strengthen these collaborations, in terms of training and information flow, but also in terms of aligning the position for the benefits of SMEs. SBS will also continue to work with NSOs and promote best practises in place. Additionally, SBS will lead two SME supporting projects that CEN and CENELEC will undertake in 2015: i) the application of CEN and CENELEC Guide 17 “Guidance document for standards writers taking into account SME needs”, and ii) support and engage with trade associations.

Finally, a substantive achievement, is the appointment of SBS by CEN-CENELEC SME Working Group to lead the “Apply Guide 17” project. In this context, in November, SBS warmly welcomed CEN-CENELEC’s blog promoting the Guide 17 ‘Guidance document for standard writers taking into account SME needs’.

SBS has been working with CEN-CENELEC and has further established its SME representative-ness in the standardisation world. As lead on task, SBS welcomes this tool enabling to further com-municate on the Guide 17 and to hence further take into account SME needs.

Indeed, the 'CCMC Editors Blog' is a new interactive environment which provides tips, guidance and support for all those involved in the standards drafting process. SBS therefore hopes to work in collaboration with CEN-CENELEC to provide the necessary support to the TC secretariats and members. Last but not least, SBS is also participating to the E-learning tool for SMEs that CEN-CENELEC is currently working on with its members.

The third national seminar – jointly organised by SBS and the German Crafts Organisation (ZDH) – took place in Berlin on 2nd December 2014. Around 30 participants debated national and European opportunities and approaches for the access to European standards and European standardisation. Following the introduction by ZDH Secretary General Holger Schwannecke, SBS Board Member and ZDH Vice-President Karl-Heinz Schneider made the key note speech pointing out the increasing need of a European representation for German Craft companies in the European Standardisation System. Dr Bohnsack, from the German Institute for Standardisation (DIN), described the positive collaboration with ZDH in the Kommission Mittelstand and cited different measures and ap-proaches to increase the participation of SMEs in the work of DIN in the national mirror committees. Last but not least, Dr Bohnsack gave numerous examples of specific solutions for the access to standards for certain sectors or types of companies, including flat rates. Tim Krögel (ZDH) represented SBS and explained the work of the association

as well as the exisiting opportunities to participate in SBS’ work. The final discussion about varying ap-proaches to participation in European standardisation occurred during the panel discussion with the two German SBS-Experts Frank Kania and Ralf Spiekers. Overall the event was very successful and helped to improve the understanding of SBS, as well as improv-ing awareness among participants of the European Standardisation System. The sector associations, com-panies and Craft chamber representatives present will act as a good multiplier in the Craft sector.

SBS and ZDH organise the German national seminar

N.6 — December 2014

Page 4 N.6 — December 2014

SBS candidates elected to ETSI Board and General

Assembly

In November, the two nominated candidates from the SBS network of members were elected by ETSI (the European Telecommunication Standards Institute) for its Board and General Assembly. SBS warmly welcomed the election of its candidates as recognition that SMEs need to be promoted within the ICT sector and need to be more involved in the drafting process of ICT standards.

For the election by ETSI members, SBS had put forward Peter Statev for the General Assembly and Sebastiano Toffaletti for the Board. Both candidates work in the ICT sector, particularly focus-ing on representing SME interests at European level.

Since the nomination, SBS – through its representative – has already volunteered to lead two topics for the ETSI Board:

ETSI in the EU and external standardisation landscape Horizon 2020 and ETSI attractiveness for new innovative work

SBS opposes CEN-CENELEC decision to limit the right

of appeal

End of October, SBS presented its Position Paper opposing CEN-CENELEC’s decision to limit the right of appeal against a standard solely to organisations having contributed to the production of the standard in question. SBS highlighted that the decision goes against all announcements and principles for improving SME participation and sends the wrong signal to stakeholders willing to engage within standardisation.

The right of appeal allows stakeholders to lodge a formal complaint against the publication of a standard and give further reflection and contribution to its problematic aspects. The new internal rules, adopted in April and May by the CEN BT and the CENELEC BT, establish that appeals can only be tabled if the appealing organisation has contributed to the activities leading to the produc-tion of that standard. This limitation goes against the aim of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 that requires CEN-CENELEC to involve all stakeholders, with particular attention to the under-represented categories in the Standardisation System, the so-called Annex III organisations, of which SBS is part.

SBS is very concerned that this decision will limit its range of actions, considering that human re-sources and the lack of effective information and transparency often bring SMEs to be aware of a

SBS organised three national seminars in 2014. The aim was to increase awareness on the importance of standardisation towards Umbrella organisations and SMEs. Meetings were held in Paris (26th June), Milano (10th October) and finally Berlin (2nd December). Some follow-up actions have already been put in place, such as a bilateral meeting between SME organisations and AFNOR, the French National Standardisation Organisation. SBS foresees to organise similar activities in 2015, with a particular attention to Austria, EFTA countries and Eastern Europe.

Upon his election, Mr. Statev stated: “My duty will be to use my knowledge, experience and professional network in order to represent the interest of all European SMEs and ICT entrepreneurs in ETSI, as well as con-tinue the positive dialogue with the large industry players. Interoperability and standards are necessary to create the conditions for European SMEs to grow.”

Page 5

given issue only until late in the process. The right of appeal is a last-resort tool for SMEs to guar-antee their representation in the standardisation process and the limitation of this right may pre-clude SBS from opposing standards that are detrimental for them.

In addition, SBS believes that the right of appeal was never abused by Annex III organisations and no evidence supports CEN-CENELEC’s decision to use the limitation as a solution to reduce the development time of standardisation deliverables.

Finally, this decision goes against the provisions negotiated and obtained by SBS and the other An-nex III organisations in the Partnership agreement signed with CEN-CENELEC, where the right of appeal is not limited.

SBS took part in the second yearly meeting of the CEN Technical Board (BT) on 27th-28th Octo-ber. As a CEN Partner, SBS takes part in these meetings without voting rights. In addition to tech-nical reports on the major standardisation sectors (Services, Construction, Eco-design, Machin-ery…), a very relevant discussion was held on stakeholders’ engagement. BSI made an introductory presentation on the topic by highlighting the importance of involving SMEs and mentioning cer-tain national initiatives. SBS stressed the importance and willingness to make a European contribu-tion in terms of involvement, namely by fully taking part in the activities of the CEN-CENELEC SME Working Group.

The second day mainly revolved around the relations between CEN and the European Commis-sion’s policy and mandates. Indeed, discussions consisted of the financing arrangements for con-sultants, with the approval of a CEN BT resolution confirming the importance of New Approach Consultants for the standardisation system. This resolution also calls on CEN-CENELEC BT WG 127-2 ‘Tasks and responsibilities of the New Approach Consultants’ to make an assessment of pros and cons to keep the New Approach Consultants under the CEN-CENELEC management. The last part of the meeting was devoted to presentation and discussion on the Vademecum on Stand-ardisation.

SBS participates in the CEN BT meeting

N.6 — December 2014

The European Commission organised the 2nd Joint Coordination Meeting between the EC, ESOs, EFTA and the Annex III Organisations on 4th December. The first Joint Coordination Meeting was held in March and was an important opportunity for each of the Annex III Organisations (including SBS) to present its 2014 objectives and overall business plan.

SBS participated in both meetings and used the opportunity to vehicle its messages towards the stakeholders. This time round was an additional step to integrate SMEs into the standardisation system. Ernst & Young – the organisation mandated in 2014 to present an independent review of the European Standardisation System (ESS) – was invited to present the first results of phases 1 and 2 of its review. SBS contributed to both phases, during a bilateral meeting with EY, by relating information pertaining to the particular case devoted to Annex III organisations, and their integra-tion into the ESS. EY therefore presented the forthcoming case studies where specific stakeholders may be invited to contribute, namely on Speed, Research and Innovation, IPR, comitology, cooper-ation mechanisms , primacy of international standardisation, compliance checks, ICT, and aero-space. SBS hence requested to be involved, in particular on those relating to ICT, E-Invoicing and Construction.

SBS participates in the 2nd Joint Coordination Meeting

Page 6 N.6 — December 2014

SMEs gets further involved in the EU standardisation

process

SBS participated in the 3rd meeting of the Working Group 'Operational Aspects and Strategy' of the Committee on Standards, held on 5th December 2014. Member States and Annex III Organisa-tions – with CEN-CENELEC, ETSI and EFTA representatives – discussed the Draft Vademecum on European Standardisation.

In this context, SBS had previously warmly welcomed the European Commission’s initiative to consult Stakeholders and SMEs in particular on the draft Vademecum on European Standardisa-tion. SBS strongly calls on SME focus and hence on the full respect of market relevance in future standardisation requests by the EC.

Moreover, SBS is glad to be involved in the process as an Annex III Organisation representing SMEs and supports such a document as a key element of a harmonised implementation of a Euro-pean standardisation policy and related practices. The recognition of the specific status of Annex III Organisations, among which one representing SMEs, is a step forward for SBS as SMEs need better access to the drafting standards process and to information pertaining to standards.

The Market Relevance Principle puts SMEs at the core of the debate and SMEs being the back bone of European economy, such a consideration is crucial when defending and proposing new draft-mandates. SBS hence strongly calls on the respect of market relevance in future standardisa-tion requests by the EC.

Additionally, SBS requests to have sufficient and relevant time to participate to each EC consulta-tion. In order to ensure an efficient and transparent collaboration with SME organisations in Eu-rope, sectorial and horizontal, at both national and European levels, it is important that such a con-sultation towards SMEs includes a systematic and standardised period. SBS hence asks for a mini-mum of 30-days period to participate and actively contribute to each EC consultation on Draft mandates.

At the Committee meeting, a European Commission representative explained the rationale and the main content of the draft Vademecum, stated that the EC feels a great need to align internal pro-cesses to the fundamental changes brought by Regulation (EU) 1025/2012. CEN and its members all expressed the need to further improve the document, which they still feel is too prescriptive.

SBS comments to this draft document were compiled in a position paper and have been sent to the European Commission. SBS especially expressed certain remarks on relevant parts of the docu-ment such as stakeholders consultation and market relevance, but accepting the rationale and the need for a new Vademecum on standardisation.

Furthermore, SBS openly stated its support of the idea of creating a task force to enable the Va-demecum to be finalised before March 2015. The task Force will be chaired by the European Com-mission and managed by CEN-CENELEC.

In the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy, the Commission has identified a number of flagship initiatives. One of these flagships is "an industrial policy area for the globalisation era". In this con-text, standardisation has been designated as one of the key policies for strengthening the internal market by generating economic benefits through harmonisation and economies of scale.

Already in 2005, the Commission mandated CEN to examine the feasibility of taking a horizontal approach to European Service Standardisation (Mandate M/371). The outcome of this feasibility study is CEN's 'Horizontal European Service Standardisation Strategy' (CHESSS Study), com-

SBS participates on meetings on horizontal services

Page 7 N.6 — December 2014

20 SBS experts met on 4th December for the second training seminar of the year. Experts were able to share concerns and challenges, when representing SMEs in Technical committees. It was also important to share good practises and general principles applied, such as the definition of Consen-sus as defined in the ISO/IEC Directives Part 1 “General agreement, characterised by the absence of sustained opposition to substantial issues by any important part of the concerned interests and by a process that involves seeking to take into account the views of all parties concerned and to reconcile any conflicting arguments Consensus need not imply unanimity”.

Finally, experts were also informed of new procedures and tools implemented by CEN-CENELEC towards SMEs, such as the e-commenting tool and the CEN and CENELEC public enquiry. Ingrid Soetaert and Renée van der Cammen (CCMC) provided a large overview SBS and SME interaction with the standardisation system, highlighting that SBS is involved in the entire drafting process. SBS was given the opportunity to put forward comments on drafts submitted to enquiry and vote falling in the scope of the TCs in which SBS par-ticipates. The CEN voting system used by the CEN Members (called eBalloting) includes functionalities allowing SBS to access the draft standards and submit comments electronically. The SBS comments are then compiled with the other comments in the results of the ballots. SBS secretariat is notified when a new draft is submitted to any formal procedure (Enquiry as well as vote) for those TCs in which SBS participates.

SBS experts attend internal training seminar

pleted in 2008. The study shows that there is a horizontal dimension to services and that horizon-tal services standardisation can facilitate cross-border services in the EU.

Specific mandate was provided to CEN-CENELEC to encourage the development of voluntary European standards with the aim of facilitating cross-border provision of services. The two objec-tives were:

Phase I: Establish a clear programme for the development of horizontal European service standards

Phase II: Develop a number of voluntary horizontal European service standards

SBS participated in the Seminar “Better services: how can European standards help?” organised on 17th November, where CEN-CENELEC communicated the first results of the Mandate, i.e. the specific topics proposed for standardisation. These were discussed during the working group mee-ting on the same topic on 27th May, in the framework of a project (Mandate M/517) funded by the European Commission and EFTA.

The six first selected topics were presented and form a package of standards to improve clarity around cross-border buying and selling of services:

Service terminology Information to client (before, during or after ser-

vice provision) Service procurement Agreement – service contracts (B2B/B2C) Service review – Performance measurement Service review – customer satisfaction mea-

surement.

The final report is to be submitted to the EC by end of February 2015 at the latest.

Page 8 N.6 — December 2014

Technical News

Life in technical committees: a new CEN Enquiry Procedure

In the framework of continuous efforts to reduce the development time of standardisation deliver-ables, CEN BT recently adopted new procedures for the approval/commenting/adoption stages of European standards. A new enquiry procedure is indeed being applied to all new standards and revision of existing standards, thus impacting the way fundamental steps of the TCs’ work are or-ganised. The new enquiry will apply weighted voting by CEN members and will only last 3 months – instead of 5. If the weighted vote in the enquiry is positive, the TC can decide to skip the Formal Vote and go straight to publication. If that is the case, the TC must explicitly take a majority deci-sion on this.

This could potentially lead to a review of the use of the Unique Assessment Procedure (UAP) on which the CEN BT recently took a decision. It is highly desirable, according to CEN, that these procedures are streamlined with and also adopted by CENELEC.

Harmonised standards in construction: EC consultation

The Construction Unit of the European Commission has recently contacted the members and ob-servers of the Standing Committee on Construction (SCC) to inform them about the upcoming publication of certain candidate harmonised standards in construction. The goal of the EC is to consult stakeholders, including SBS, about this list.

The target publication date in the Official Journal for the European Commission is mid-January 2015. Therefore, SBS invites its members to express their views on these standards if they have a regulatory query on the above standards or if they consider it necessary to have an extended co-existence period for them and how long this extension should be.

CEN/TC 248, WG 33 - Synthetic report about creating more dialogue with laborato-ries and research center in textile field.

Chemical dyeing tests are especially fundamental to establish the correct execution of finishing pro-

Construction standardisation presented at the UEAPME

Construction Forum

At the UEAPME Construction Forum meeting in Oc-tober, standardisation in construction was discussed with a CEN-CENELEC Management Centre presenta-tion. One of the aims was to present the main elements and peculiarities of construction standardisation, hence introducing major changes encountered by the newly-implemented CPR as well as broaching the future devel-opments in this field concerning sustainability and dan-gerous substances.

The UEAPME Construction Forum is a biannual sectoral forum open to UEAP-ME members. Since the kick-off of the SBS project, the Construction Forum has dealt with construction standardisation in much more depth considering that close to half of all harmonised European standards cover construction products.

Assessment of the CPR implementation

As indicated in previous SBS circulars, the EC has recently tasked a consulting company, Risk Poli-cy Analysts, to run an assessment exercise of the implementation of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR). Risk Policy Analysts has started this exercise by publishing a questionnaire sent to all relevant stakeholders in the construction sector and standardisation.

The consultation is aimed at informing policy makers on progress against the CPR objectives and will contribute to developing conclusions on whether further actions still need to be taken to en-

Page 9 N.6 — December 2014

cesses and the consequent correct definition of the maintenance label. These are also part of the basic chemical dyeing tests necessary to verify or determine the fiber composition of textile prod-ucts (regulated by EU directives) that are now the subject of more detailed controls both while transiting through customs and also on the market. The tests offered are therefore broad and di-verse and include labelling verification tests (composition and maintenance) and classical tests con-cerning the characteristics of colour fastness, dimensional stability, colour measurement and colour differences. These are the tests that permit placing on the market the products satisfying the basic needs of the final consumer.

Also, to ensure the harmless nature of the products, these tests are meant to support companies both in evaluating their products and related manufacturing processes and in meeting the demands of consumers who are increasingly concerned about the risks arising from a globalised market where the controls in the production phase are sometimes lacking.

The laboratory is equipped with the most modern instrumental analytical techniques for carrying out the tests according to European and international regulations including:

the European Regulation REACH, the GB Chinese standard, the CPSIA (Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act) of the United States, the Code of Federal Regulation American for tests on metals, AP89 and DM 21/3/1973 for the release of dyes from packaging.

Obtaining eco-labels ensures focus on the customer’s health combined with the preservation of the ecosystem in the production of textiles, such as:

Oeko-Tex® Standard 100: products into the Oeko-Tex® Standard 100 adopt require-ments defined by the presence of potentially harmful substances.

Ecolabel: is the brand of eco-friendly products of the European Union. It is not compul-sory but it is applicable to all products. It is obtained through processes with low environ-mental impact and is assessed in their entire life cycle.

Mark COMFORT: attests the degree of well-being offered by a fabric through the evalua-tion of its thermophysical and sensory properties.

Among the tests performed and most demanded are the identification and quantification of heavy metals, pesticides, carcinogenic aromatic amines derived from azo dyes, allergenic dyes, organotins, phthalates, perfluorooctanesulfonic acid , chlorinated benzenes and toluenes (carrier) , chlorinated phenols, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

CEN TC409 pr EN 16708 - "Beauty Salon Services – Requirements and recommen-dations for the provision of service"

The European Standard EN 16708 design was provided by CEN TC 409. The establishment of the CEN TC 409 was approved by the majority at the CEN BT in early 2011.

This draft contains requirements and recommendations for the provision of professional beauty salons services, including mobile service. It also gives recommendations for customer management. Medical procedures (including aesthetic surgical procedures) are outside the scope, hairdressing, barbering and tattoo services are also excluded. At the beginning of the standard, training of ap-prentices was not allowed. Currently, the draft has been reviewed and it seems so that the training of apprentices will be possible in the future.

In numerous meetings in 2014, special burdens that would result from this standard were negotiat-ed. The draft refers to the European Qualification Framework (EQF) whereas the NQF (National Qualification Framework) is only a recommendation and should not get regulatory character via standards.

Several major themes are still to be discussed. The final vote is expected in the summer of 2015. Should the final vote be positive, the European standard of the CEN National Members is to take over as a national standard.

Page 10 N.6 — December 2014

ISO-TC228 – Creation of a technical specification for medical spas

In some fields it really makes sense to have a standard, tourism is one of them. Standardised public information symbols, for example, help us get information even if we do not understand the lan-guage.

ISO-TC228 (Tourism related services) was established in 2007 and currently has 53 participating countries (P-members), 29 observing countries (O-members) and 14 organisations in liaison. With-in the TC 10 Working Groups (WGs) were established and SBS is represented in WG 2 and 10. WG 2 compasses 3 project groups (PGs) with the following subjects: PG1 Medical spas using nat-ural resources-service requirements (ISO/DIS 28621) – abandoned due to the impossibility of merging management system and service requirements in one single document, according to ISO regulations; PG2 Thalassotherapy – draft confirmed by a recent vote and ready for publication as ISO 17680; and PG3 Wellness Spa-Service requirements (ISO/CD 17679) – drafting stage reached.

The Viennese Agreement between ISO and CEN has established something like a primacy of initi-ative to avoid redundancy. With ISO-TC 228 being a little bit more alert, this had led to a dormant CEN-TC136.

SBS representation in ISO-TC228 is highly based within Europe, with an additional half a dozen members in the Mirror Committee. Most European hotel associations have agreed on a mode of defining quality apart from standards institutes. Their initiative is named “Hotel Stars Union” and compasses Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lat-via, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Netherlands, Sweden and Switzerland.

TC 53 - Temporary Works Equipment

After being unable to find consensus on prEN 1004 rev during the revision process and the inabil-

Standards under work in ISO-TC228 WG 2 – Health Tourism Services – Wellness Spa

WG 2 – Health Tourism Services – Medical Spa (open for NWIP ) WG 7 – Adventure Tourism (open for NWIP) WG 8 – Yacht Harbours - Part 2: Minimum requirements for intermediate service level harbours WG 8 – Yacht Harbours - Part 3: Minimum requirements for high service level harbours WG 9 – Industrial Tourism WG 10 – Environmentally Friendly Accommodation

Standards issued by ISO-TC228 ISO 24803 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for recreational scuba diving service providers ISO 13289 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the conduct of snorkelling excursions ISO 13970 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of recreational snorkelling guides ISO 24801-1 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of recreational scuba divers -- Part 1: Level 1 -- Supervised diver ISO 24801-2 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of recreational scuba divers -- Part 2: Level 2 -- Autonomous diver ISO 24801-3 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of recreational scuba divers -- Part 3: Level 3 -- Dive leader ISO 24802-1 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of scuba instructors -- Part 1: Level 1 ISO 24802-2 - Recreational diving services -- Requirements for the training of scuba instructors -- Part 2: Level 2 ISO 21101 - Adventure tourism - Safety management systems – Requirements ISO 21103 - Adventure tourism - Information for participants ISO 13009 - Tourism and related services - Beach Operation ISO 13687 - Tourism and related services – Yacht harbours – Minimum requirements ISO 14785 - Tourist information offices – Tourist Information and reception services - Requirements ISO 18065 - Natural Protected Areas — Tourist services for public use provided by Natural Protected Areas Au-thorities — Requirements

Page 11 N.6 — December 2014

Small Business Standards (SBS) is a European non-profit association established in 2013 with the support of the European Commission. SBS is exclusively devoted to representing and defending SME interests in the standardisation system at European and international levels.

Its 21 members are national and European sectoral and inter-professional associations representing SMEs all over Europe. The membership is thus open to all associations matching these criteria.

SBS was created to meet the European Union’s aspiration to make the standardisation system as inclusive, transparent and open as possible, by strengthening the participation of “weak” stakeholders such as SMEs.

4, Rue Jacques de Lalaing B-1040 Brussels Phone: +32.2.285.07.27 Email: info@sbs-sme.eu

www.sbs-sme.eu

The work conducted

under SBS is mandated

and financed by the

European Commission

Vocabulary box

* ESO: European Standardisation Organisation * NSO: National Standardisation Organisation * TC: Technical Committee * WG: Working Group * hEN: Harmonised European Norm (Standard) * NWIP: New Work Item Proposal

ity to provide deliverables, a voting procedure has been launched by CEN TC 53 secretariat re-garding the future of WG 4.

The voting result of the draft decision to close the WG 4 was distributed as CEN document. The result showed that CEN members approved by majority on setting W G 4 dormant after failing to finalise the revision tasks set by CEN /TC 53.

The importance of this standard is still real as the products dealt within EN 1004 are often in the possession of SMEs. The products the standard deals with will always be considered as best prac-tice in several countries. For the next five years the risk is only latent. Still to come are the de-mands of some health and safety experts. They will always try to incorporate code of practice rules in products standards and this may endanger the existence of safe products.

So far it was not possible to clarify these essentials in any of the meetings in the last three years. No new products belonging in another standard, and no code of practice chapters in a product standard should be allowed.

However, it is helpful to know that SBS is able to remind CEN TC 53 of the necessity of practical relevance in the standardisation process (development and revision).

ISO calls off RPD standards

The plenary meeting ISO TC94/SC15 on Respiratory Protective Devices (RPD) in Bad Kohlgrub on 3rd October 2014 resolved to withdraw the draft standards ISO CD 17420-1&-2. The project of developing internationally recognised standards on Respiratory Protective Devices was initiated at ISO in 2002. The stated intention of this ISO project was to eventually replace the equivalent Eu-ropean EN standards that are used for CE marking of RPD. The withdrawal of draft standards entails that the work is aborted. Standards on the same subject can only be worked on if ISO for-mally approves a New Work Item Proposal "NWIP".

SBS welcomes ISO’s call off decision as it is indeed a good result for SMEs and it corresponds to the SBS position. There were many shortcomings in the draft ISO standards and SMEs do not need standards just for the sake of having standards, SMEs need good quality standards they can work with. Bad standards are a true burden for SMEs: they increase costs, confuse users and slow down conformity assessment processes.