CENELEC
The European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) was founded in 1973. It is a European electro-technical standardization organization, whose purpose is to shape a harmonious market area of EU and EEC members.
CENELEC’s mission and purpose
CENELEC’s mission is to prepare voluntary electro-technical standards that help develop the Single European Market/European Economic Area for electrical and electronic goods and services, removing barriers to trade, creating new markets and cutting compliance costs. Through the publishing of EN standards CENELEC defines the demands of electro-technical products and services in Europe. Because of international agreements these standards will widely guarantee access to the global market. The products made according to the harmonized standards can be successfully labeled with the CE mark.
CENELEC members
The 30 current CENELEC members are national organizations entrusted with electro-technical standardization. CENELEC has two kinds of members: ordinary member countries and associated member countries. National electro-technical standards associations represent their countries in CENELEC. Each member country has a number of votes related to the countries’ population.
CENELEC publications
CENELEC concentrates most of its work on two key publications: The European Standard (EN) and the Harmonization Document (HD). These two documents are commonly referred to as "standards" and must be implemented in all CENELEC member countries, who must also withdraw any conflicting standards.
EN - European Standard: It is a normative document available, in principle, in the three official languages of CENELEC (English, French and German) that cannot be in conflict with any other CENELEC standard. EN's are the most important documents published by CENELEC. Its development is governed by the principles of consensus, openness and transparency. There is also a national commitment to implement it in each and every one of the member countries of CENELEC, its technical coherence regarding both national and European levels.
HD - Harmonization Document: Same characteristics as the EN except for the fact that there is no obligation to publish an identical national standard at national level (may be done in different documents/parts), taking into account that the technical content of the HD must be transposed in an equal manner everywhere.
European standards are grounded on international IEC-standards. EN standards and IEC standards have to be implemented as technically identical national standards. There are a few differences in the implementation process of EN's and HD's. Basically, the EN must be transposed as it is, not adding or deleting anything. The process for HD's is a bit more flexible. It is the technical content that must be transposed, no matter the wording or how many documents are made from it.
The EN standards are mostly based on the international IEC standards. Because EN standards have to be implemented to technically identical national standards, it is necessary nationally to follow standardization work and to contribute continuously to different phases of standards’ preparation processes.
The preparation of standards is illustrated in the following schemes:
Preparation by corresponding system of IEC-, EN- and SFS-standards
Preparation of EN- and SFS-standards