User:Strimo/European Standard

European Standards  (EN) (the abbreviation EN originated as a result of the more literal translation from French/German as European Norm) are technical standards that have been ratified by one of the three European standards organizations: European Committee for Standardization (CEN), European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) or European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). All ENs are designed and created by all interested parties through a transparent, open and consensual process.

European Standards are a key component of the Single European Market. Though rather technical and unknown to the general public and media, they represent one of the most important issues for business. Although often perceived as boring and not particularly relevant to some organizations, managers or users, they are actually crucial in facilitating trade and hence have high visibility among manufacturers inside and outside the European territory. A standard represents a model specification, a technical solution against which a market can trade. It codifies best practice and is usually state of the art.

European Standards must be transposed into a national standard in all member countries. This guarantees that a manufacturer has easier access to the market of all these European countries when applying European Standards. Member countries must also withdraw any conflicting national standard: the EN prevails over any national standard.

Numbering and Naming
In principle, number assignment starts with EN 1 (Flued oil stoves with vaporizing burners). The following predefined number ranges are an exception.

Since standards are updated as needed (they are reviewed for currency approximately every five years), it is useful to specify a version. The year of origin is added after the standard, separated by a colon, example: EN 50126:1999.

In addition to the EN standards mentioned, there are also the ISO standards with the numbers ISO 1 to 59999 and the IEC standards from IEC 60000 to 79999, as well as EN standards outside the defined number ranges.

When an EN is adopted by a national standards body into the national body of standards, it is given the status of a national standard (e.g. German Institute for Standardisation (DIN), Austrian Standards International (ÖNORM), Austrian Standards International (SN)). The name is then prefixed by the country-specific abbreviation (e.g. ÖNORM EN ...), and the number of the European standard is usually adopted, e.g. DIN EN ISO 2338:1998 or ÖNORM EN ISO 9001:2000.