Is standardization too important to be left to standardizers?

By Margot Dor, Senior Advisor and former Head of Public Affairs at ETSI

In the Single market strategy and the associated Omnibus IV released by the European Commission on 21 May 2025, standards-setting is identified as “the 5th barrier”. The lead measure to break it is to empower the Commission to draw up common specifications. It will be followed by a review of the standardization regulation.

Let’s start with the inaugural diagnosis: European standardization is outpaced by China and the US who both produce standards better and faster, while in the EU “the institutions that codify and adopt standards” (quoting Commissioner Séjourné) are bureaucratic and slow. OK, let’s compare:

• Since it joined the WTO in 2001, China has handled standardization as a strategic asset and increased it capacity in standards-making accordingly, both domestically and internationally. A series of reforms and strategic plans (latest is China standards 2035) with the associated financing have indeed contributed to substantially increasing the footprint of a region which twenty years ago or so was essentially a standards-taker.
• The US standards system differs from that of the EU indeed. However, in domains identified as strategic the free market is often abetted by the very powerful NIST[2], a division of the US Department of Commerce whose annual budget in 2025 reaches USD 1.1billion.
• Meanwhile in the EU, the Commission invests roughly a diminishing yearly budget of €25 million for standardization including inter alia grants to the standards organizations and financing of societal stakeholders.

Standardization in the EU is mostly financed by market players who invest the bulk of the resources needed (time, money, savoir-faire) to make the system work and as a matter of fact, it most often delivers.

Breaking “the 5th barrier” really?

It is said that the Single Market strategy and Omnibus IV intend to address solely standards in support of legislation, i.e. “situations where harmonised standards do not exist, are not available, are not sufficient, or there is an urgent need”.

To fix this, the Commission “in cases where the current standardisation system does not deliver will allow (itself) to lay down common specifications”. This would be used to grant the presumption of conformity to place products on the market.

Quick reminder: in response to legislative needs, harmonized standards are drafted in European Standards organizations by market players, i.e. industry -corporates and SMEs-, public authorities, national standards bodies, R&D labs, academia, users and consumers. Once drafted, standards go through a circuit of approval and eventually the Commission greenlights the citation of the standard in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU). After this, any product conforming to the standard is deemed in conformity with the legislation and can be deployed in EU27. The Commission is part of the process from A to Z, from assessing compliance throughout the production cycle to green lighting the citation of the standard in the OJEU. Those close to the matter know how thorough this process can be.

It has been a while since the option to use “common specifications” in lieu of harmonized standards has been in the air. And why not, standardization is a living system and should adapt to stay fit. Yet, having the executive leading standards-setting raises some questions among which:

• Who will actually draft the Common specifications?
• What will be the process and its timing?
• Will it remain as open and inclusive as the WTO-TBT’s and the Commission’ mandate?
• Is it the beginning of the end of the NLF[2] that the Commission intends to review in Q2 2026?
• Is there a risk of drying up an otherwise well-functioning system for a hypothetical gain?

When presenting the Single Market Strategy to the press, Commissioner Séjourné said jokingly “common specifications are not executive orders, but almost”. The analogy is audacious, but telling.

People with an interest in standardization and all those who agree that beyond its dry image, standardization is also a tool for competitiveness will certainly watch closely what comes next with the review of the standardization regulation and that of the NLF.

[1] National Institute of Standards and Technology www.nist.gov

[2] New Legislative Framework New legislative framework – European Commission