Standardisation and SMEs
European standards are a powerful means of enhancing the competitiveness of SME's.
They reduce the technical barriers to trade and thus they facilitate the access of SME's to the Single Market.
The European Commission is carrying out actions to improve the participation of SME's in the European standardisation process as well as to promote the information on and use of standards among SME's.
Every year more than 1000 European standards are adopted.
Although standardisation processes formally allow for participation and input from all interested stakeholders, SME's and craft enterprises often do not take part in the process. This is mostly because they are unaware of new developments, cannot easily evaluate their importance or do not have sufficient financial or human resources to allocate to standardisation activities.
These factors result in a relatively low participation of SMEs in the standardisation process.
Ultimately, the specific interests of SME's may not be properly reflected in the standards, as SME's only learn about the new standards after their adoption and publication (in their own language).
EU actions in the field of promoting SMEs and Standardisation :
The objectives of the EU actions are to promote the participation of SMEs and craft enterprises and their interests in the European standardisation process, as well as to improve SME and craft enterprises' information on, and use of European standards and to show them the benefits of using standards.
The European Commission has supported projects facilitating access of SMEs to standardisation since 1995.
The main activities in this field were carried out by NORMAPME and CEN-CENELEC and have been described in more detail below :
- NORMAPME
- CEN-CENELEC and partners
- Study on "Best Practices to promote the participation of craft and SME enterprises in standardisation and the use of standards" (EIM) (2006)
- External evaluations of EU actions in the domain of SMEs and standardisation
More information on why participation of SMEs in standardisation is an important subject in Europe and a brief overview of the European standardisation system can be found here:
