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Smes and Standardisation in Europe

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Smes and Standardisation in Europe __ qg Ref. Ares(2014)75569 - 15/01/2014 Enterprise and Industry SMEs and standardisation in Europe 23 good practices to promote the participation of craft and SME enterprises in standardisation and the use of standards EIM Business & Policy Research COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION COM(2005) 474, 5.10.2005 European Commission SMEs and standardisation in Europe 23 good practices to promote the participation of craft and SME enterprises in standardisation and the use of standards EIM Business & Policy Research, Zoetermeer, October 2006 This report is available as PDF file from http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/entrepreneurship/craft/craft- priorities/craft-standardisation.htm or by e-mail from [email protected]. EIM Business & Policy Research P.O. Box 7001, 2701 AA Zoetermeer, The Netherlands Tel: + 31 79 3430200 Fax: + 31 79 3430204 Office in Brussels: Rue Archimède 5, Box 4, 1000 Brussels Tel: + 32 2 5100884 Fax: + 32 2 5100885 Internet: www.eim.nl Email: [email protected] Acknowledgements This study was commissioned and financed by the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry of the European Commission. The contract was awarded to EIM Business & Policy Research in The Netherlands (www.eim.nl). EIM implemented the study in co-operation with the European Office of Crafts, Trades and Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises for Standardisation NORMAPME (www.normapme.com) and the members of the European Network for Social and Economic Research ENSR (www.ensr-net.com) in the 32 countries involved (See Annex III). This report has been prepared by a project team of EIM Business & Policy Research in the Netherlands that consisted of Koos van Elk, Rob van der Horst, Sander Oudmaijer, Maarten Overweel en Jennifer Telussa of EIM. The assistance of Philip Ngotho is appreciated. The research team would like to thank staff of unit E.3 and unit C.2 at the Directorate General for Enterprise and Industry for their support. Finally, Julian Hancock, SME Research Services UK, was kind enough to edit this report. Note At the time of writing, some references to EU websites became unfortunately obsolete as the URL of the European Commission was being changed into http://ec.europa.eu/ The contents of this publication do not necessarily reflect the opinion or position of the European Commission. Neither the Commission nor any person acting on behalf of the Commission is responsible for the use that might be made of the information contained herein. Contents Summary, conclusions and recommendations 7 1 Introduction 13 2 What is standardisation? 15 2.1 Introduction 15 2.2 The standardisation process 15 2.3 Economic benefits of standards 17 3 The importance for SMEs and craft enterprises 19 3.1 SMEs and craft enterprises in general 19 3.2 SMEs and standards 21 4 The activities of the European Union 25 4.1 General 25 4.2 The Euro Info Centres Network 29 4.3 NORMAPME 32 5 Selecting good practices in promoting the participation of SME and craft enterprises 39 5.1 The Internet survey 39 5.2 The selection process of good practices 42 5.3 Classification of all 401 policy measures identified 46 6 Twenty-three good practices in Europe 51 The 23 good practice examples that are listed in Chapter 6 are presented in the table on the next page, organised by type of measure and type of organisation. Annexes I List of abbreviations and organisations, Europe and standardisation 149 II List of EICs active in the field of CE marking and standardisation 153 III Research Partners in 32 countries 155 3 Matrix of Contents Chapter 6 Twenty-three good practice examples have been included in Chapter 6. In this 'Matrix of contents' these good practice examples are grouped by type of organisation running the measure and by type of measure. The numbers in the matrix refer to the section number (and page number). National Administrations National standards bodies Craft & SME organisations Others Total Subsidy 6.18 Slovakia - Direct support 6.4 Finland - Travel allowance (65) 5 (128) 6.12 Malta - Supply of standards at reduced rate (103) 6.21 Spain - Grants for attending European meetings (139) 6.22 Sweden - Travel allowance for Standardisation Meetings (143) Workshops 6.1 Croatia - Co-financing and 6.10 Italy - Institutional conventions 6.2 Czech Republic - Information 6.15 Poland - Training and 8 & certification services (52) (95) points for entrepreneurs (58) Seminars 'Welding' Seminars 6.11 Luxembourg - Standards 6.13 Netherlands - Project Aware- 6.19 Slovenia - Seminar and work- (115) for information security ness (106) shop (131) (100) 6.14 Norway - Network forums (112) Informa- 6.6 Germany - KAN-Reports on 6.23 UK - Meetings and Newslet- 2 tion& OHS-Standardisation (74) ters (146) Publications Website 6.9 Italy - Website (90) 1 Consultancy 6.3 Denmark - Danish Standard 6.16 Poland - Training Envi- 3 & University (61) ronmental Standards Training 6.8 Hungary - Seminars; training (120) for awareness (86) Others 6.5 France - Standardisation 6.17 Portugal - Face-to-face contacts 6.7 Germany- Mechanical Engi- 4 activities Ministry of SME (125) neering Standards Commit- (70) tee (NAM) (80) 6.20 Spain - Promotion of Work- ing Groups (135) Total 4 11 6 2 23 5 Summary, conclusions and recommendations The economic reality of Europe SMEs and craft enterprises are an important part of the enterprise sector in Europe: 99 % of all enterprises, about 70 % of all jobs and 50 % of value added1 are in SME. Standards play a number of important roles in the economy: they facilitate an ever in- creasing division of labour; strengthen the Single European Market by reducing techni- cal barriers to trade within Europe and beyond; facilitate improvement of health and safety at work, etc., etc. Still SME and craft enterprises feel, to a large extent, that standards are something for the large corporate sector and think they are not involved. Consequently the participa- tion of such enterprises in standardisation is rather low: in terms of accessing relevant information; in terms of participation in Technical Committees where standards are ac- tually developed and in terms of actually using standards in their own enterprises. The European Charter for Small Enterprises (2000) and other policy documents stress the important role SMEs have to play in underpinning Europe's competitive position and the Commission and the Member States are called upon to 'strengthen the technologi- cal capacity of small enterprises'. Standardisation in Europe The post-war period was characterised by a development of the national standards bod- ies resulting in different standards in various European countries. These technical (non tariff) barriers to trade obviously hampered the completion of the Single Market. There- fore the EU decision makers resorted to a uniform European standardisation system2. There are two major objectives: to contribute to the internal market and to strengthen the competitiveness of the European economy world-wide. The European Commission and other agents such as the European Parliament have rec- ognised the need to get SMEs more involved in standardisation. One of the initiatives of the Commission in this area is to support the creation of NORMAPME: the European Office of Crafts, Trades and Small and Medium-sized Enterprises for Standardisation. It was created with the financial support of the Commission to improve the participation of SMEs in European standardisation, to increase the influence of small enterprises in standard writing and to help SMEs understand and implement standards. One of the important results of the NORMAPME operation is the establishment of greater visibility of small and medium-sized enterprises in the standardisation process. Also the Euro Info Centres (EICs) Network plays a role in standardisation. The network - financially supported by the Commission and managed by DG Enterprise and Industry - 1 SMEs are defined as all enterprises with less than 250 workers, including craft enterprises. 2 CEN, the European Committee for Standardisation, was founded in 1961 by the national standards bodies in the European Economic Community and EFTA countries and CENELEC, the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation, was created in 1973 following the merger of two predecessors, and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) was established in 1988. 7 was originally set up to disseminate EU information to SMEs but developed into a more general provider of (international) information to enterprises. EICs - of which there are nearly 300 - have developed information products and seminars to raise awareness of and knowledge on standardisation with enterprises. In addition there is a working group on standardisation within the EIC Network that developed for example fact sheets on New Approach directives and a step-by-step guide to CE marking. Policy support for SMEs in standardisation Not only policy makers at European level, but also other types of stakeholder have taken many initiatives to foster the participation of SME and craft enterprises in stan- dardisation: (i) national administrations; (ii) national standards bodies and (iii) SME and craft organisations. Asking about 1 200 staff members of these three types of stakeholder in 32 European countries about the measures that are actually in place to inform, support and persuade SME and craft enterprises to participate in standardisation results in about 400 meas- ures. Measures range from very broad and general initiatives on raising awareness - 'Stan- dardisation also matters for your enterprise!' - to very specific guidance on narrow sub- jects such as food and safety standards or technical standards for welding equipment. The instruments chosen also vary: publications, workshops and seminars, training, pro- vision of standards at reduced rates, subsidies to participate in Technical Committees, etc. Often several instruments are offered as a package. Measures are identified in nearly all 32 countries considered, ranging from countries with no measure identified1 (i.e. Belgium, Estonia, Greece and Liechtenstein); only a very small number of measures identified; i.e.
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