Council conclusions

of 26 June 1997

Communication from the Commission on Community external trade policy in the field of standards and conformity assessment

(2001/C 8/01)

1. The Council reaffirms the importance of reducing technical barriers in world markets and preventing the emergence of new ones to facilitate Community trade and market access for products thus enhancing exports and generating employment.

2. In view of that objective, the Council agrees on the importance of implementing a comprehensive, coherent and operational external strategy. Such a strategy should include the assessment of sectoral and geographical priorities on a regular basis taking into account trade interests as well as the evaluation of its results. Implementation of this external strategy should not, however, be to the detriment of legitimate demands for better protection of health, safety and the environment and should not put the single market regulatory regime into jeopardy. It also needs to take account of the Community's commitment to the multilateral trading system.

3. The Community has a varied collection of instruments and policies at its disposal: the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Technical Barriers to Trade Agreement, the harmonisation of standards and technical regulations, agreements for the mutual recognition of conformity assessment (MRA), technical assistance and action in the field of regulatory cooperation. The objective should be to identify the most appropriate instruments and policies and to ensure that they are used in a coordinated manner.

4. With that priority in mind, the Council welcomes the Commission Communication on Community external trade policy in the field of standards and conformity assessment policy and strategy in this area. It fully agrees that the Community's objectives should include:

- in the multilateral framework, ensuring the full implementation by all Members of the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade and, in the bilateral framework, of corresponding agreements or other measures to reduce barriers,

- promoting international harmonisation of standards, regulations and conformity assessment procedures,

- negotiating agreements on conformity assessment to reduce the costs of testing and certification in other markets,

- improving coordination and coherence between the Community's and the Member States' technical assistance programmes in order to ensure that partner countries' regulatory regimes are transparent and can better serve external trade objectives,

- achieving regulatory cooperation aimed at harmonising regulations and standards with other trading partners.

5. The Council welcomes the general thrust of the recommendations set out in Section V of the Communication and wishes to emphasise the following aspects which in its view should be highlighted in the Community's strategy.

A. AS REGARDS STANDARDS AND CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT ISSUES

- The Council welcomes the report of the Committee on technical barriers to trade as adopted by the WTO Ministerial Conference in Singapore in December 1996. It further recognises the importance of the triennial review of the operation and implementation of the new Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade which is due to take place by the end of 1997 and recalls the proposals recently submitted by the Community to the relevant WTO Committee.

In this respect it recognises the importance to the elimination of technical barriers to trade of the greater use of international standards and regulations; of a closely defined relationship between WTO and international standardising organisations; of encouraging trading partners to adopt standards and regulatory approaches based on, or compatible with, international and European practice, including the adoption of mandatory regulations in the form of general requirements along the lines of the Community's "new approach" directives; and of promoting arrangements whereby regional and national standardising organisations would agree on cooperation to ensure compatible results with international standardising organisations and to eliminate unnecessary duplication.

- When considering whether, and in which circumstances, the Community should be more closely involved in the work of international rule-making/standards bodies, the Council invites the Commission to study the practical impact of such involvement from the angle of the division of competencies between national and European bodies.

- The Council considers it essential for the Community to establish further geographical and sectoral priorities. It invites the Commission to provide the necessary elements to enable it to identify such priorities and to reassess periodically these priorities as well as the means to achieve them.

B. AS REGARDS CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT AGREEMENTS

- The Council stresses that harmonisation initiatives and mutual recognition agreements should each be pursued on its own merits. Nevertheless, in view of the importance industry places on achieving greater international harmonisation of standards and regulations, the Community should ensure that mutual recognition agreements support this goal wherever possible.

- The Council notes that negotiations for mutual recognition of conformity assessment agreements, including European Conformity assessment agreements with the countries of central and eastern Europe (CEECs), will be carried out in line with specific negotiating guidelines as established by the Council.

In particular, in the case of European conformity assessment agreements, the Council considers that negotiations should secure the progressive alignment to the acquis communautaire according to an agreed calendar.

In addition, the Council invites the Commission to submit an assessment of the potential commercial impact when opening any additional negotiation. Such evaluation should be taken into account for a proper selection of the initial sectors to be covered in those conformity assessment agreements. The Council also expects a timely evaluation of the balanced character of the agreements, both on a commercial level and in terms of market access.

C. AS REGARDS TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE PROGRAMMES IN THE FIELDS OF STANDARDISATION AND CERTIFICATION

- The Council stresses that technical assistance programmes should be aimed at encouraging international harmonisation of standards and regulations, facilitating mutual recognition, wherever possible, in order to ensure free trade while guaranteeing a high level of health, safety and environmental protection, and strengthening other forms of regulatory cooperation.

- The Council emphasises that European or national organisations and Member States regulatory authorities should be involved to a much greater extent in technical assistance programmes. Greater transparency of bilateral and Community programmes and greater consistency between bilateral and Community programmes should also be ensured to avoid duplication of efforts. In addition, the Council supports the recommendation that Community programmes should provide for their independent review.

D. AS REGARDS REGULATORY COOPERATION

- The Council reaffirms that bilateral action in the field of regulatory cooperation as regards standardisation and certification should be undertaken, without prejudice to international obligations. Such action should aim essentially at increasing transparency and should lay the ground for mutual understanding between Parties. This should also facilitate work carried out in the international harmonisation framework. In all cases, there should be appropriate involvement of the Council which should be kept closely informed of the progress and results of any actions undertaken including the definition of sectoral and geographical priorities.

- The Council is also of the view that coordination should be strengthened and that a continuous dialogue should be started with the third countries concerned to understand more fully regulatory issues and barriers on major markets and to follow and influence the course of regulatory change.

E. AS REGARDS THE EXTENSION OF THE MANDATE OF THE ARTICLE 113 COMMITTEE TECHNICAL GROUP

The Council instructs the Article 113 Committee to take all necessary measures to ensure that the Community's external trade policy in the field of standards and conformity assessment is implemented in a comprehensive, coherent and operational way.

Such measures should involve a broadening of the existing technical group's mandate to the extent necessary to ensure this coherent policy.