Joint letter from the Group of Representative Bodies to the Commissioner in charge of Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs
The Railway Sector is very active in supporting both the European Railway Agency and ‘CEN-CENELEC-ETSI’ for the development of the Interoperability and Safety regulations and the European technical standards.
New Approach Consultants employed by CEN_CENELEC are identified by the sector as a key contributor for the quality and efficiency of the standardisation process in the sector whilst helping to reduce the delivery time of the standards. Their work is complementary to that of the sector and they guarantee consistency between the voluntary standardisation structure and the regulatory framework managed by the European Railway Agency.
The availability of these New Approach Consultants was however interrupted during the first 7 months of 2014, and it seems the work on standardisation is again interrupted for an undefined period due to negotiations between CEN_CENELEC and the services on the budget for these New Approach Consultants.
GRB urges Commissioner Elżbieta Bieńkowska in a joint letter to resolve this position together with CEN_CENELEC and ETSI so that a definitive solution can be put in place and thus avoid the continued unavailability of the New Approach Consultants and the consequent perturbation of the standardisation process.