Draft:Harmonized Standard

Harmonized Standards are a European Standard for products, productionprocesses or related services. On November 14th 2012 the regulation (EU) Nr. 1025/2012 to the European Standard was published in the Official Journal of the European Union. Goal of the regulation is to harmonize standards and prevent contradictory norms on european basis.

Harmonized (european) Standards are created by organisations such as CEN, CENELEC and ETSI under the authority of the European Comission and EFTA, meaning that mentioned organisations work under a standardization mandate. They are a key component of the New Approach which was introduced in 1985 within the European Single Market to serve the movement of goods as well as services.

The basis for the implementation of the European Single Market was the Weißbuch which was published June 1985 by the European Commission. Seit dem Beginn des Neuen Konzeptes sind bisher 26 produktbezogene Europäische Richtlinien in Kraft getreten. Zu ihrer technischen Umsetzung dienen die Harmonisierten Normen.

The Harmonizations are announced in the Official Journal of the European Union, including the date of enforcement to ensure there is time to meet the demands for conformance.

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN, French: Comité Européen de Normalisation) are responsible for the content of the harmonized standards. The standards are not audited by european or national authorities, although supervision of mentioned authorities on the creation of norms is desired.

Harmonized Standards do not have to be elaborated as it is possible to submit existing standards for harmonization. Additionally, such standards are also able to apply for revision and published under new issue date. Furthermore, already present national standards (DIN, ÖNORM, SN, ...) or international standards (ISO, ...) can be proposed to the European Commission of Standardization.

All european harmonized standards have to be implemented as national standards (DIN EN, ÖNORM, SN etc.); Conflicting national standards must be withdrawn within a certain period of time. The reference of the transposed national standard must also be published by the country concerned. In Germany, this is done in the Bundesanzeiger.

Access to harmonized standards as part of Union law
In the so-called James-Elliott-Case of 27 October 2016, the European Court of Justice ruled that harmonized standards are part of Union law. The case was referred to the Court by the Supreme Court of Ireland after the Irish construction company James Elliott Construction brought an action for damages against a supplier of building materials for non-conforming materials.

In 2018, the organizations public.resource.org, represented by its founder Carl Malamud, and Right to Know, which campaigns for free access to official documents, unsuccessfully applied to the European Commission for free access to some harmonized standards in the field of toy safety. After the General Court of the European Union initially confirmed the European Commission's rejection, the European Court of Justice ruled on 5 March 2024 in the so-called Malamud-Case that harmonized standards must be freely accessible as part of Union law. However, the Court rejected the complete removal of copyright protection for the standards.

Weblinks

 * Europäischer Binnenmarkt beim DIN
 * Europäische Harmonisierung der Normen(Note: This link may not yield results anymore)
 * Verzeichnis der harmonisierten Normen auf den Seiten des Directorate General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs (englisch)
 * Antwort von Hr. Verheugen im Namen der Kommission auf die Anfrage zur Anwendung harmonisierter Normen
 * Liste der europäischen harmonisierten Normen (European Commission) (englisch)