Ref. Ares(2015)4684500 - 29/10/2015
Ref. Ares(2016)6183596 - 28/10/2016
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
Directorate-General for Trade
Directorate E - Neighbouring countries, USA and Canada
USA and Canada
Brussels,
USA and Canada
Meeting Report
Meeting Orgalime – 06 10 2015
Participants:
ORGALIME:
,
and
.
Commission : I. García Bercero,
,
,
,
,
,
,
.
• Commission debriefed ORGALIME on the status of negotiations, particularly
TBT and Engineering chapters and requested further input from ORGALIME on
their offensive interests: revision of the NRTL program and possible areas for
cooperation => ideally agreeing on common standards to be upgraded to
international standards afterwards.
• Commission noted the need to achieve a balanced outcome in this area and
highlighted importance of the single standard in the internal market.
• ORGALIME recalled interest on mutual recognition of test certificates for
components among NRTLs, but although they acknowledge the importance of the
issue, they cautioned against paying a high price for it. They also warned against
accepting conflicting standards in the internal market => Internal market is key in
the success of the EU engineering industry.
• Higher uptake of international standards in the US would be the ideal solution for
ORGALIME.
• ORGALIME suggested that maybe it is worth sounding other US Agencies apart
from OSHA, in particular EPA and FCC. However, with no specific suggestions
on possible areas for cooperation.
•
ORGALIME’s perception is that US has no appetite for regulatory cooperation
in the engineering sector => neither industry nor Agencies. They noted that
certification industry & standardisers have more weight in fixing US positions
than the manufacturing industry.
• According to ORGALIME cooperation on standardisation does not make sense if
not done together with Regulatory cooperation.
• Eventually, they agreed to continue looking for areas to be further investigated:
notably with NEMA and some sectors: agriculture and construction equipment.
Commission européenne/Europese Commissie, 1049 Bruxelles/Brussel, BELGIQUE/BELGIË - Tel. +32 22991111
Document Outline