Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2012-09-10-Speech-1-034-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20120910.21.1-034-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, honourable Members, first let me congratulate the rapporteur, Lara Comi, and the members of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection – in particular, its Chair, Malcolm Harbour – for the excellent work which they have completed.
You all know that standardisation is one of the major instruments underpinning the European economy. The cooperation between industry users, public authorities and the standardisation organisations in drawing up standards has contributed decisively to what I think you will all agree is one of Europe’s greatest achievements: the internal market.
Standards play a vital role in enhancing the competitiveness of European enterprises; they assist access to today’s globalised markets and ensure interoperability, which is vital for competition and developing new products and services. For SMEs, standards are a key tool to help them retain and attract consumers. The reduced risk and increased trust and satisfaction flowing from the use of standards opens markets for them in a secure environment.
Precisely because of this importance, standardisation must adapt to the new societal changes that we face: the globalised economy, the need for sustainable development, the convergence of technologies protecting the consumer and improving accessibility and inclusion for disabled and elderly people. To address these issues, the Commission adopted the Standardisation Package in June 2011, and I am glad to see that the European Parliament is now discussing the adoption of the final piece of that package: the regulation on European standardisation. This regulation would help to address and solve three problems.
First, the speed of mandated standardisation. The planning and transparency of Commission mandates asking the European standardisation organisations to draw up standards in support of the legislation and policies will be improved through the annual work programme and by means of financial support.
Second, the inclusiveness of European standardisation. The opinion of relevant societal stakeholders is today not sufficiently integrated in the process, and this regulation will improve this representation of SMEs and societal stakeholders at both European and national level.
The third element concerns public procurement. You know that many information and communication technology standards ensuring interoperability are elaborated not by the European standardisation organisations but by global forums and consortiums, and these specifications do not then fit into our categories of standards to which public authorities may refer in their calls for tender.
This regulation will provide an evaluation procedure, after which public authorities will be able to use such ICT specifications in public procurement provided they comply with a set of criteria based on the World Trade Organisation principles for the standardisation process. The regulation also affirms the existing possibility for the Union to use service standardisation as a policy tool within harmonised service sectors.
Like so many in Parliament, the Commission regrets the Council’s determination to impose bureaucratic comitology procedures on mandates which we think are both unjustified and will undermine the efficiency of the system due to their time-consuming nature. This is why we are going to make full use of the review clause inserted – thankfully – by Parliament to evaluate the impact of comitology on mandates, with a view to making possible new proposals within two years. Nevertheless, given that most of the key elements of the original proposal have been accepted, and in a spirit of compromise and in order to facilitate a first-reading agreement, the Commission is willing to accept the text as agreed between Parliament and the Council."@en1
|
| lpv:unclassifiedMetadata | |
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples