Standards: a new role for consultants

Posted on 03.04.2018

The European Commission is replacing the current New Approach (NA) consultants with the Harmonised Standards (HAS) consultants, which are expected to be fully operational as from 1 April 2018. Unlike the former consultants, the role of HAS consultants is only to assess and verify whether the European Standards drafted by the European Standardisation Organisations (ETSI, CEN, CENELEC) comply with the standardisation requests of the European Commission and with the respective legislation. The consultants will support the Commission to verify whether the requirements for publication of the references of standards in the Official Journal of the European Union, a process so-called harmonisation, are met.

However, HAS consultants will no longer be involved in the actual drafting processes and therefore Technical Committees can no longer make use of HAS consultants services to fill any potential gaps in the technical or legal expertise.

For more information, please consult this link.