Testing and Certification in Europe

ABSTRACT In 1.985 a "White Paper" was published by the European Commission concerning the creation of a single market, with free movement of goods, services, people and capital within the European Community. It was clear that differences in standards, tests and certification created barriers to trade. To 1.evel down these barriers to trade a "New Approach" was started and a CE-mark was introduced. This mark for products is a tool to cross the borders but not a sign of quality. INTRODUCTION In Europe technical barriers to trade have arisen for a variety of reasons, one of them being the legislative requirementsof different Member states protecting the health and safety of their people. Also a wide variety of other non-legislative reasons ranging from simple purchaser preference, through the use of local standards, to insistence on local testing and certification build up serious barriers. (Fig. 1) Elimination of these barriers to trade is dictated by their nature, whether they are in the regulated/ mandatorysector, that is to say due to legislation, or are due to some other reason. To gain a clear insight into the industry'sview on different types of barriers to trade, a questionnaire was sent out to over 20.000 companies in all 1.2 Member states of the European Community. The questionnaire was inquiring how the companies evaluated the barriers to trade as a whole. The different barriers to trade were rankedas follows:Technical standards and regulationsAdministrative barriersFrontier formalitiesFreight transport regulationsValue-added tax referencescapital market controlGovernment procurement restrictionsImplementation of Community law Technical regulations were thus considered by the industrialists as the most important single category of barriers to trade. Also repeated testing and certification of the same product in different Member states constitute technical barriers in the common market. In order to level down the legal barriers to trade, in 1.985 the Council of Ministers agreed a resolution on a"New Approach to Technical Harmonisation and Standards". The New Approach Directives set out "Essential Requirements" which stipulate in broad terms must be achieved in order to protect health, safety and environment, rather than how it should be achieved.A product must satisfy the Requirements of all relevant Directives before it can be placed on the market. A Directive is legally obliging Member states to implement the regulations in national laws. The broad nature of the "Essential Requirements", together with majority voting introduced under the New Approach, makes agreement on the continent of Directives more straightforward and allows greater flexibility in product development. In recognising the diversity of testing, inspection and certification activities, the EC has drawn up a series of standard conformity assessment techniques, known as "Modules", for use in the New Approach Directives. Theserange from manufacturer declaration, through a variety of routes involving design and type approval, to full third party certification..