Standards are an essential part of how our world works because they establish how something needs to function, whether because of legislation or because an industry wants to have an agreed practice. Harmonised standards in particular are key to ensuring that products placed on the EU market respect the health and safety of consumers.

However, the European Standardization System currently suffers from a number of shortcomings, including insufficient participation from civil society groups during the drawing up stage of these standards and a lack of boundaries as to what is “standardisable” and what is not. The growing use of standards as part of important legislative work, such as the AI Act, amplifies the need to address these issues.

In this paper, sister organisations ANEC and BEUC propose to create a system where no delegation of lawmaking to standard-setting bodies takes place, and where societal stakeholders are not only present but can have an impact in shaping standards.

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ANEC and BEUC major recommendations include:

• Amend EU Regulation 1025/2012 which underpins European standardisation to modify the overall governance.
• Define domains where standards cannot be used in EU legislation, such as for the definition of ethical values or fundamental rights.
• Clarify the role of the European Commission in assessing whether a standard is in line with the initial standardisation request and follows legislative provisions.
• Reinforce the presence and rights of civil society groups in the standardisation process, including by making funding available for them to participate.
• Ensure that the texts of harmonised standards are freely accessible to the public.