The EU Commission presented a new standardization strategy on Wednesday. “We want to make our standards more visible and thus have a greater influence on global developments,” explained Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton. Europe has long been a leader in international standardization organizations such as ISO and ITU. In many cases, however, Chinese and US companies have now defined the standards. At the same time, the Commission wants to ensure that standards support the digital and green transition.
One point of the new strategy is that in future EU actors should decide on European standards that implement EU policies and legislation. A reform of the regulation on standardization should ensure that European interests are sufficiently taken into account in standardization requests from the Commission. This would affect the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (Cenelec).
prevent interference
In doing so, the Commission wants to rule out “inappropriate influence by actors from countries outside the EU and the EEA on the decision-making processes when developing standards” for key areas such as cyber security or hydrogen. Breton justified the project with a decision by ETSI from 2020 on the compatibility of smartphones with the European satellite system Galileo. At that time, the Commission’s request for standardization was rejected under pressure from non-European actors.
Despite the new requirement, the European system will “remain open, transparent, inclusive and impartial,” emphasizes the Commission. It’s not about protectionism. European civil society, small and medium-sized enterprises and users should be more involved than before. Breton criticized the fact that “sometimes 50 percent of the voting rights lie with non-European companies” in European standardization bodies.
“Stronger Leadership”
At the same time, the Commission is striving for “a stronger European leadership role in global standards”. She wants to create a “high-level forum” to exchange information with the EU countries and the national standardization institutions and to coordinate the European approach to international standardization. According to Brussels, there will also be more cooperation with “like-minded partners”. To this end, the EU will finance standardization projects in African states and neighboring countries.
Other focal points of the strategy are to link research and standardization more closely, to train new experts in the field of standardization and thus to initiate a “generational change among experts”. In “strategic areas” the Commission also wants to “anticipate, prioritize” and deal with the need for standardization more promptly. It aims, for example, at the production of Covid-19 vaccines and medicines, the recycling of critical raw materials, the value chain for clean hydrogen, low-CO₂ cement and the certification of chips and data standards.
Starting this year, such standardization priorities are to be clearly defined, for example via the planned forum. A “Senior Standardization Officer” is also envisaged to provide high-level guidance for standardization activities throughout the Commission, supported by an EU Center of Excellence on Standards, made up of Commission representatives.
China’s influence a “risk”
With the project, the Commission is primarily responding to the increasing involvement of Chinese forces in international standardization, which is challenging established standardization powers. With corresponding proposals, the communist government in Beijing could try to “abuse standardization as an instrument to promote technologies that call into question democratic values and human rights,” several European foundations warned in December. They referred, for example, to the proposal by the network supplier Huawei for a new Internet protocol called “New IP”.
It was only on Tuesday that the Federation of German Industries (BDI) urged the EU to be more internationally aware of its power when it comes to norms and standards. Especially when it comes to future technologies, Europe runs the risk of being left behind by China. Bitkom boss Achim Berg also said that Europe and Germany had “lost ground in international standardization” in recent years and therefore described the strategy as overdue. The Association of the Electrical and Digital Industry (ZVEI) described the EU initiative as an “important sign”. The dwindling influence of German and European companies is “a risk for the European and German export economy.”
(vbr)