Services Standards: Defining the Core Consumer Elements ... - ANEC

Hans-W. Micklitz
Standardisation of services is a challenge, for policy makers at the European
level, for the Member States, and last but not least, for the Standards Bodies,
be they national, European or international. The history of standardisation is old,
it goes back to the Roman times, but it has always and entirely focused on
products. In the second half of the last century services have gained an ever
growing importance. Rosecrance 21 published in 1986 his book on “the service
society” which became known around the millennium as the so-called
information or information services society. The European Community followed
the two-fold basis, from products to services. The first three decades of the
European integration policy were marked by the strong impetus to strike down
tariffs and quantitative restrictions (Article 28 ET) 22 . The famous Single
European Act 23 , forestalled by the White Paper on the Completion of the Internal
Market 24 constituted the turning point in the European integration policy, both for
products and services. However, it took until the elaboration of the so-called
Service Directive 25 , before the subject gained the importance it deserved.
I. The existing EC approach on the regulation of products – the
blueprint for services
In the late seventies the European Commission had to recognise that it does
not suffice to turn down tariffs and quantitative restrictions to establish a
common market, but that there are numerous non-tariff barriers to trade which
hindered the free flow of cross border trade, amongst others technical
standards. The first reaction of the European Commission was to attempt to
adopt product related directives which contained technical standards the
producers had to comply with if they wanted to enter the Common Market.
However, this burdensome procedure turned out to be a failure. The European
Parliament was and is not the appropriate forum to discuss technical properties.
It is here where the famous New Approach to technical harmonisation and
standards 26 comes in, being a horizontal device to elaborate European
standards. Up to today the New Approach still determines EC policy on
standardisation.
21 Commerce and Conquest in the Modern World, 1986.
22 European Treaties, here in the version of the Treaty of Nice, which entered into force on
the 1.2.2003; OJ C 80, 10.03.2001, 1.
23 The SEA, signed in Luxembourg on 17 February 1986 by the nine Member States and on
28 February 1986 by Denmark, Italy and Greece, is the first major amendment of the
Treaty establishing the European Economic Community (EEC); OJ L 169, 29.06.1987; 1,
see http://europa.eu/scadplus/treaties/singleact_en.htm.
24 COM (1985) 314 final, 23.7.1985.
25 OJ L 376, 27.12.2006, 36.
26 OJ C 136, 4.6.1985, 100.
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