UK wins in Europe

 

Patrick England – Technical Consultant to CAB

The CEN Technical Committee CEN TC33 for windows, doors, hardware, shutters and curtain walling met on the 21st and 22nd October, and one of the items on the agenda were the security standards prEN1627-1630. This was the forum which would decide the future of these contentious Standards.

It should be remembered that prior to this meeting these Standards had been voted on and approved by TC33.

However, the UK delegation to this meeting, of which CAB was a member, after a long debate in committee, about the time taken to develop the standards, reproducibility and repeatability, of manual intervention methods of testing, were able to win a concession on these standards, which provides a way to protect the UK enhanced security standards.

The minuted Resolution was as follows: “CEN/TC 33 agrees to progress to BT the four standards EN 1627 to EN 1630 for ratification after the insertion of the accepted modifications detailed in document N2354 with the recommendation that the UK request for an A deviation to be provided by BSI to CEN/BT be accepted.”

An ‘A’ deviation is a deviation from the law which means that the standards, if published, would not meet the legal requirements in the UK, and the case sited was the Public Procurement Directive which places legal requirements on all Public Procurement in the UK.

The document N2354 was the UK and AFNOR (French Standards body) proposal for changes to overcome objections raised by both countries. So both the UK’s proposals and the opportunity for an ‘A’ deviation to be added to the UK versions of these standards represented a significant win for the UK even after the standard had previously been voted on and approved.

This shows that CAB is now in a position together with our colleagues from other trade associations that make up the UK delegation to CEN TC33, to influence new European Standards at any stage in their development provided we maintain that involvement.

For guidance and more information about CAB and its membership, please contact Julie Harley at the CAB office on 01453 828851 or by email at julie.harley@c-a-b.org.uk