“European standardization strives to adapt to technological change in a rapidly evolving market that demands interoperability of products and services. Bureaucracy would impede this fast adaptation as it is often synonym of static and routinely. We must look forward and not backward and this implies alleviating the system from heavy bureaucratic processes”, Carlo Masetti at the occasion of the award ceremony.

European Standardization at the honour for cutting red tape

CEN and CENELEC bet on innovation to support the European economic recovery. We therefore must ensure that we cut red tape in order to foster initiative and provide a dynamic and flexible standardization system. These efforts are today recognised by the grant of this award (1). Present in Prague to receive this honour in the name of CEN and CENELEC was Dr. Masetti, CENELEC’s Vice-President Technical (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation) and Senior Advisor of CEI (Comitato Elettrotecnico Italiano).

How concretely do we cut red tape?

One of the core principles of CEN and CENELEC is the “National delegation”: once a European Standard is published it replaces 31 national standards, contributing to diminish administrative burden. And also the co-regulation principle, which defines the link between standardization and legislation, and allows to cut red tape: 30% of the European standards can be used as a toolbox to comply with legislation. Through co-regulation and therefore thanks to standards, industries comply with legislation in a much easier manner.

(1) The Prague Anti-Bureaucratic Award is awarded annually to an individual, group of people or an organization for a long-term determined stance in fighting the bloated bureaucracy and for any work, act, action or idea that has had significant benefits for the anti-bureaucratic movement.