REPORT on European Standards – implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012

9.6.2017 - (2016/2274(INI))

Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Rapporteur: Marlene Mizzi
Rapporteur for the opinion (*):
Hans-Olaf Henkel, Committee on Industry, Research and Energy
(*)  Associated committee – Rule 54 of the Rules of Procedure

Procedure : 2016/2274(INI)
Document stages in plenary
Document selected :  
A8-0213/2017

MOTION FOR A EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT RESOLUTION

on European standards – implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012

(2016/2274(INI))

The European Parliament,

–  having regard to Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 October 2012 on European standardisation, amending Council Directives 89/686/EEC and 93/15/EEC and Directives 94/9/EC, 94/25/EC, 95/16/EC, 97/23/EC, 98/34/EC, 2004/22/EC, 2007/23/EC, 2009/23/EC and 2009/105/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council and repealing Council Decision 87/95/EEC and Decision No 1673/2006/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council,

-  having regard to Directive (EU) 2016/1148 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2016 concerning measures for a high common level of security of network and information systems across the Union 2016/1148 (the NIS Directive),

–  having regard to the report from the Commission to the European Parliament and the Council of 1 June 2016 on the implementation of Regulation No 1025/2012 from 2013 to 2015’ (COM(2016)0212),

–  having regard to the Commission staff working document of 1 June 2016 entitled ‘Analysis of the implementation of Regulation No 1125/2012 from 2013 to 2015 and factsheets’ (SWD(2016)0126),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 1 June 2016 entitled ‘European standards for the 21st century’ (COM(2016)0358),

–  having regard to the Commission staff working document of 1 June 2016 entitled ‘Tapping the potential of European service standards to help Europe’s consumers and businesses’ (SWD(2016)0186),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 1 June 2016 entitled ‘The annual Union work programme for European standardisation for 2017’ (COM(2016)0357),

–  having regard to the Commission staff working document of 1 June 2016 entitled ‘The implementation of the actions foreseen in the 2016 Union work programme for European standardisation, including the implementing acts and mandates sent to the European standardisation organisations’ (SWD(2016)0185),

–  having regard to the Commission communication of 19 April 2016 entitled ‘ICT Standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market’ (COM(2016)0176),

–  having regard to the Joint Initiative on Standardisation under the Single Market Strategy, as referred to in the Commission communication of 28 October 2015 entitled ‘Upgrading the Single Market: more opportunities for people and business’ (COM(2015)0550),

–  having regard to its resolution of 21 October 2010 on the future of European standardisation[1],

–  having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee entitled ‘European standards for the 21st Century’,

–  having regard to the opinion of the European Economic and Social Committee entitled ‘European standardisation 2016’,

-  having regard to the Commission’s open source software strategy 2014-2017[2],

–  having regard to Rule 52 of its Rules of Procedure,

–  having regard to the report of the Committee of the Internal Market and Consumer Protection and the opinions of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy and the Committee on Transport and Tourism (A8-0213/2017),

A.  whereas the European standardisation system is a central element in the delivery of the single market; whereas the Commission’s action setting out a common vision for European standardisation is a direct outcome of the Juncker Commission’s ten priorities and, in particular, the priorities relating to the Connected Digital Single Market and the Single Market Strategy;

B.  whereas an open, inclusive, transparent and primarily market-driven European standardisation system based on trust and proper compliance plays a key role in responding positively to the increasing need, in European industrial, economic, social, and environmental policy and legislation, for standards capable of contributing to product safety, innovation, interoperability, sustainability and accessibility for people with disabilities, and of improving the quality of life of citizens, consumers and workers;

C.  whereas an efficient European standardisation system should be based on close partnership and cooperation between industry, public authorities, standardisation bodies, and other interested parties such as the Annex III organisations recognised under Regulation 1025/2012;

D.  whereas European standards need to be developed in an open, inclusive and transparent system, based on consensus among all stakeholders, with the aim of defining strategic technical or quality requirements with which current or future products, production processes, services or methods may comply;

E.  whereas the Commission communication on ICT Standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market acknowledges the value of open standards, but does not provide a definition of an open standard; whereas open standards have proven important to the creation and development of the internet and of internet services that have in turn fostered innovation, societal, and economic prospects;

F.  whereas the use of open source software and hardware licensing solutions should and may help European companies and administrations secure better access to digital goods and services;

G.  whereas a modern and flexible European standardisation system is a useful component for an ambitious and renewed European industrial policy and for the operation of the single market; whereas standards can enhance the EU’s global competitiveness, growth, fair competition and innovation, support quality, businesses, and, in particular, SMEs’ performance and the protection of consumers, workers and the environment;

H.  whereas two different standards development systems coexist in Europe, namely one based on the national delegation principle as implemented by the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC), and another based on the paid membership of stakeholders as developed by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI); whereas there is a need to evaluate the standards development systems relating to Regulation 1025/2012 with a view to identifying existing challenges and good practices;

I.  whereas Regulation 1025/2012 has brought improvements to the standardisation process by integrating, for the first time, societal stakeholders and SMEs under the legal basis of the European standardisation system;

J.  whereas ICT standards, which are predominantly developed at a global level, make it possible to develop interoperable solutions for complementary products and for the various parts of a particular product, which is particularly important for the development of the ‘internet of things’ (IoT); whereas fragmentation of standards and proprietary or semi-closed solutions hinder the growth and take-up of IoT, and it is therefore necessary to develop a strategic approach to ICT standardisation in order to ensure a successful response to the needs of the forthcoming decade, thereby allowing the EU to maintain a leading role in the global standardisation system;

K.  whereas the publication of documents and data fulfils governmental responsibilities and transparency goals, including accountability, reproducibility, sustainability, and reliability of governmental action; whereas when documents or data are published it must be on the basis of open and standardised formats, so as to avoid ‘lock-in’ situations where a software product or a vendor might no longer be commercially available, and so that independent entities are able to implement those formats under diverse development and business models, including open source, in such a way as to ensure the continuity of government and administrative processes;

L.  whereas the transport sector has been at the forefront of the development and deployment of standards that are necessary for the creation of the Single European Transport Area;

General considerations

1.  Welcomes the overarching Commission standardisation package, which, alongside the ICT Standards Communication and the Joint Initiative on Standardisation, aims at setting out a coherent and simple European standardisation policy with a view to preserving its many successful elements, improving its shortcomings and striking the right balance between the European, national and international dimensions; stresses that any future review of the European standardisation system (ESS) should build on the strengths of the existing system, which constitute a solid basis for improvement, refraining from any radical changes that would undermine its core values;

2.  Acknowledges the specificity and importance of the ESS from the viewpoint of all stakeholders, including industry, SMEs, consumers and workers, and calls on the Commission to ensure that the European system continues to exist and that it maintains sufficient resources to fulfil the objectives of Regulation 1025/2012, thus contributing inter alia to interoperability, legal certainty and the application of appropriate safeguards, for business and consumers and for the free movement of information technology; calls on the Commission to guarantee a sustainable budget for the ESS in the revision of the multiannual financial framework (MFF);

3.  Welcomes the Standards Market Relevance Roundtable (SMARRT) under the Joint Initiative on Standardisation, which enables dialogue between the Commission and industry, with full transparency for stakeholders as regards agenda items of the Committee of Standards.

4.  Notes that standards are a voluntary, market-driven tool providing technical requirements and guidance the use of which facilitates compliance of goods and services with European legislation and supports European policies when they are developed in an accountable, transparent and inclusive way; stresses, however, that standards cannot be seen as EU law, since legislation and policies regarding the level of consumer, health, safety, environment and data protection and the level of social inclusion are determined by the legislator;

5.  Recognises the role of open, standardised formats for transparency duty of governments, administration, and the European institutions; calls on the Member States to try applying common standards with regard to digital administration, focusing in particular on judicial bodies and local authorities; stresses that open standards are essential to the further development of open government data and smart cities policies, and that documents and data must therefore be published in open, standardised formats that can be easily implemented, so that the reuse of data is facilitated; highlights the role of public procurement and open standards solutions in avoiding vendor lock-in;

6.  Believes strongly that open data remains an essential element, particularly in the transport sector, for reaping all the benefits of the Digital Single Market, such as the promotion and development of multimodal transport; stresses, therefore, that more legal certainty, mainly in terms of ownership and responsibility, is required; calls on the Commission accordingly to publish, without further delay, a roadmap for the development of standards aimed at the harmonisation of publicly funded transport data and programming interfaces in order to boost data-intensive innovations and the provision of new transport services;

7.  Stresses that the current system of accreditation of testing institutions does not always guarantee that the products and services on the market voluntarily applying European standards are compliant with those standards; regrets that the Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS) and the Annual Union Work Programme for European standardisation (AUWP) pay no attention to the accreditation of testing institutions and standards, and calls on the Commission to take this aspect into account when proposing new initiatives;

8.  Is of the opinion that open standards must be based on openness of the standardisation process and development and availability of standards for implementation and use, in accordance with Regulation 1025/2012 and the WTO principles; acknowledges the Commission’s intention, as expressed in the roadmap on Standard Essential Patents, to clarify issues related to FRAND and SEPs licensing; encourages the Commission, together with the European standardisation organisations (ESOs) and the open source communities, to explore suitable ways of working together;

9.  Stresses that the European standardisation system must contribute to European innovation, enhance the Union's competitiveness, strengthen Europe’s place in international trade and benefit the welfare of its citizens; deems it important, therefore, that Europe should uphold its key role in the international standardisation system, and stresses the importance of promoting European standards at a global level when negotiating trade agreements with third countries; underlines that the European standardisation system can also benefit from partnership agreements established by ESOs with standardisation organisations from third countries, and notes that Articles 13 and 14 of Regulation 1025/2012 already envisage the involvement of numerous Standards Developing Organisations (SDOs) for public procurement in the ICT field; recommends that the ESOs consider closer cooperation with third-country National Standardisation Bodies (NSBs), including Companion Standardisation Bodies, where possibilities exist for close alignment; encourages the Commission, Member States and ESOs to continue to work towards the creation of global standards, whilst also paying attention to the regional context and the relevance of the standard when getting involved in standardisation work;

10.  Stresses that international cooperation on standards helps ensure transparency, efficiency and coherence, and creates a competition-friendly context for the industrial sector, a good example being the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) World Forum for Harmonisation of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29), which was set up for the ICT sector;

11.  Stresses that standards which are adopted by international organisations are usually developed outside the scope of Regulation 1025/2012, and recommends the ESOs to endorse them only after an internal approval process involving representation of stakeholders, such as Annex III organisations, especially for harmonised standards supporting the implementation of European legislation;

12.  Is of the opinion that the ESOs should in all circumstances develop inclusive, sustainable, safe and high-quality standards with fair access for and treatment of all stakeholders as well as minimised impact on the environment and adequate protection of personal data and privacy;

13.  Considers Commission and Member State involvement with EU industry to be a crucial means of facilitating the adoption of global standards with a European stamp in the definition and rolling out of 5G technologies;

14.  Regrets the fact that differences between national standards, such as those in the freight and logistics sector, remain a barrier to the internal market, and therefore calls on the Commission and the ESOs to develop appropriate standards for harmonising conditions at national level whenever deemed necessary, with a view to removing any possible barriers to the internal market; underlines the need to seek a cross-modal harmonisation of standards in this respect;

15.  Points out, moreover, that in addition to preventing market fragmentation, standardisation can contribute significantly to reducing administrative burdens and transport costs for all businesses (e.g. via e-documents) and for SMEs in particular, and can facilitate the proper enforcement of EU legislation (e.g. via digital tachographs or electronic toll systems);

16.  Notes that Regulation 1025/2012 has improved the inclusiveness of the ESS, enabling SMEs, consumers, workers and environmental organisations to participate actively in the standardisation process, and encourages continuing in this direction so that all are adequately represented and can participate in the standardisation system and, therefore, exploit to the full the benefits derived from standardisation; calls on the Commission, ESOs and NSBs to identify the best ways to achieve this objective and to address the challenges, including lack of awareness, facing further involvement;

17.  Welcomes the efforts made by ETSI to provide easy access for European SMEs, as well as its long-term strategy for 2016-2021 for addressing specifically cross-sectoral collaboration;

18.  Acknowledges that the delivery speed of standards has improved, and recalls the importance of striking the right balance between the need to ensure timely development and the need for standards to be of high quality;

19.  Is of the opinion that, complementarily to the existing best practices to be found among the standardisation communities, increasing public awareness of proposed standards, proper and early involvement of all relevant stakeholders, and improvement in the quality of standardisation requests can further increase the transparency and accountability of the standardisation system;

20.  Calls on the Commission, in addition, to pay attention to and provide assistance for candidate countries’ efforts to harmonise their standards with European standards in order to minimise existing bottlenecks;

ICT standards

21.  Welcomes the communication on the ICT standardisation priorities setting out a strategic approach to standardisation for ICT technologies, but calls on the Commission clearly to identify the alignment between this communication and the ICT Rolling Plan, the package ‘Standards for the 21st Century’ and the Annual Work Programme;

22.  Notes that the recent convergence of technologies and the digitisation of society, businesses and public services are blurring the traditional separation between general and ICT standardisation; considers that ICT standardisation should be part of a European digital strategy to create economies of scale, budget savings and improved competitiveness and innovation for European companies, and to increase the cross-sectoral and cross-border interoperability of goods and services through the faster definition, in an open and competitive fashion, of voluntary standards that are easily implemented by SMEs;

23.  Stresses the need for greater cooperation within the ICT standardisation community, in particular between ESOs, and calls on the ESOs to prepare a common annual work programme identifying cross-cutting areas of common interest;

24.  Stresses that open, voluntary, inclusive and consensus-oriented standardisation processes have been effective insofar as they constitute a driver of innovation, interconnectivity and deployment of technologies, and recalls that it is also important to ensure proper investment and expertise in, and development of, cutting-edge technologies, and to support SMEs;

25.  Urges the Commission to request the ESOs to contribute to high-quality interoperable and open standards in order to tackle fragmentation and encourage their wide adoption, and to acknowledge the existing ecosystem and diverse business models that support the development of digital technologies, since this will contribute to the social, economic and environmental sustainability of ICT value chains and confirm commitment to the public interest of ensuring privacy and data protection;

26.  Stresses the imperative need to adapt ICT standardisation policy to market and policy developments, since this will lead to achieving important European policy goals requiring interoperability, such as accessibility, security, e-business, e-government, e-health and transport; recommends that the Commission and ESOs prioritise standards in the area of 5G, cloud computing, IoT, data and cybersecurity domains, as well as in that of vertical domains, such as ‘connected and automatic driving and intelligent transport systems’, ‘smart cities’, smart energy’, ‘advance manufacturing’ and ‘smart living environments’;

27.  Stresses the need to create an open, interoperable ICT ecosystem based on the five ICT priority standards, encouraging competition in value creation upon which innovation can flourish; believes that:

–  5G standards should allow a real generation shift in terms of capacity, reliability and latency, enabling 5G to cope with the expected increase in traffic and the different requirements of the services that will be built on top of it;

–  cybersecurity standards should enable security-by-design and comply with privacy-by-design principles, support resilience of networks and risk management, and be able to cope with the rapid rise in cyberthreats to all ICT developments;

–  cloud standards should converge so as to allow interoperability in all aspects of the cloud, thus enabling portability;

–  data standards should support cross-sectorial interdisciplinary data flows, thus achieving better interoperability of data and metadata, including semantification, and contribute to the development of a big-data reference architecture;

–  IoT standards should tackle the current fragmentation without hampering innovation in a sector that is developing very fast;

28.  Recognises that efficient 5G communication networks depend critically on common standards to ensure interoperability and security, but recalls that the development of a very high capacity network is the backbone of a reliable 5G network;

29.  Notes that in order to succeed, a data-driven economy depends on a wider ICT ecosystem, including highly educated experts as well as skilled people, in order to terminate the digital divide and digital exclusion;

30.  Encourages the Commission to compile statistics with a view to better evaluating the impact of digitisation and ICT on transport and tourism;

31.  Is aware of the growing number of platforms, groups, meetings and channels relating to ICT standards; calls on the Commission to rationalise the number of platforms and coordination mechanisms dealing with standardisation and involve standardisation organisations in new initiatives, in order to avoid duplication of efforts for stakeholders; stresses the need to better coordinate ICT standards and standardisation priorities among the different organisations, and urges the Commission to promptly inform stakeholders about the stage reached in ongoing initiatives in relation to ICT standards;

32.  Stresses that digitisation is proceeding at a rapid pace and is a major driver of the economy; underlines the importance of effective digitisation of vertical industries in order to benefit SMEs, and especially consumers, at European, national, regional and local level, and the need to represent their concerns appropriately in the framework of international ICT standardisation;

33.  Supports the Commission’s intention to explore initiatives such as a trusted IoT label and certification system, which can help foster trust in the levels of privacy and end-to-end security of an IoT device by providing measurable and comparable ratings on the possible risks associated with the operation and use of an IoT device or service; believes that these should be developed where relevant and where IoT devices could have an impact on relevant infrastructure on the basis of the requirements spelled out in the NIS Directive, which should serve as a basis for defining security requirements; notes that any such label must be able to adapt to future technology changes and take account of global standards where appropriate;

34.  Calls on the Commission to take the lead in promoting intersectoral, cross-lingual standards and in supporting privacy-friendly, reliable and secure services;

35.  To that effect, supports the definition of specific and measurable minimum requirements that take into account the long-term sustainability and reliability of IoT devices or services as well as industry-standard computer security and sustainability standards; such a list should encompass, for example, the commitment to making updates available for a minimum timeframe after purchasing, the commitment of a manufacturer or provider to a timeframe within which it will provide an update after the discovery and notification of a vulnerability; to this end, the Commission should evaluate the possibility of industry self-regulation, taking into account the speed with which standards and technologies evolve in the ICT sector, and the diversity of development and business models, including open source, start-ups, and SMEs;

36.  Takes note of the cybersecurity concerns and the specificities of the threats in the transport sector; urges the Commission to address these specificities when adopting its recommendations on cybersecurity standards which are expected by the end of 2017, as a first step towards a comprehensive strategy on cybersecurity in the transport sector;

37.  Notes that ICT standardisation will be beneficial for the development of transport- and tourism-related services and multimodal transport solutions; calls on the Commission, acting together with the ESOs, to attach greater importance to this development when implementing its priority action plan for ICT standardisation, and in particular to explore the potential role of standardisation in supporting the technological changes and new business models emerging in the tourism sector; calls on the Commission to take swift action to promote the development of integrated smart ticketing and information services and new mobility concepts such as Mobility-as-a-Service;

38.  Notes that with the increased use of the internet, online banking, social networking and e-health initiatives, people are having growing security and privacy concerns, and that ICT standards need to reflect the principles of the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data and the free movement of such data;

39.  Calls on the Commission to include the digital integration of manufacturing as an ICT standardisation priority, and encourages the development of open standards for the communication protocol and data formats for the digital integration of manufacturing equipment in order to ensure full interoperability between machines and devices;

40.  Acknowledges some concerns in particular as regards ICT and standard essential patents (SEPs), and recognises that a robust, fair and reasonable IPR policy will encourage investment and innovation and facilitate the take-up of the digital single market and of new technologies, in particular as regards the deployment of 5G and IoT devices, as they rely heavily on standardisation; stresses that it is essential to maintain a balanced standardisation framework and efficient licensing practices for SEPs based on the FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory practices) methodology and addressing the legitimate concerns of both licensors and licensees of SEPs, while ensuring that the standardisation process offers a level playing field where companies of all sizes, including SMEs, can collaborate in a mutually beneficial manner; encourages the Commission’s efforts to ensure that interoperability between digital components can be achieved through different types of licensing solutions and business models;

41.  Urges the Commission to clarify without delay the core elements of an equitable, effective and enforceable licensing methodology structured around the FRAND principles, taking into account the interests both of rightholders and of implementers of standards that include SEPs, a fair return on investment and the wide availability of technologies developed in a sustainable open standardisation process; invites the Commission to take note of the CJEU ruling C-170/13 (Huawei v. ZTE), which strikes a balance between SEP holders and standard implementers with a view to overcoming patent infringements and ensuring the efficient settlement of disputes; invites the Commission, furthermore, to improve the definition relating to information on patent scope and to address the issues related to information asymmetries between SMEs and large companies, increase the transparency of standard essential patent declarations, and improve the quality of information on the relation of SEPs to products; is of the opinion that any compensation to the developers of SEPs needs to be based on fair, proportionate and non-discriminatory terms, as well as transparent, reasonable, predictable and sustainable royalty rates, except where developers decide to provide the standard available without financial compensation; recognises, however, that diverse business models, such as royalty-free licensing and open source software implementation, exist and accordingly legislation and discussion should continue to recognise the use of all models on a basis including the rights of all market sectors and IPR holders;

42.  Notes the need for an evidence-based approach in monitoring and further developing the licensing framework in order to ensure a dynamic ecosystem that creates added value and jobs;

43.  Calls on the Commission to publish biannual reports evidencing actual cases of: (a) unlicensed SEP use (i.e. infringements) lasting for 18 months or more; and (b) issues regarding access to standards due to systematic non-compliance with FRAND commitments;

44.  Calls on the Commission to close the debate on the 'perceived need' of a science cloud and to take immediate action, in close concert with Member States, on the European Open Science Cloud, which should seamlessly integrate existing networks, data and high-performance computing systems and e-infrastructure services across scientific fields, within a framework of shared policies and ICT standards;

European standards for the 21st century

45.  Welcomes the Commission’s standardisation package 'Standards for the 21st Century', and takes the view that the standardisation system should be made more transparent, open and inclusive with a view to fully integrating the concerns of citizens, consumers and SMEs;

46.  Regrets that it was not consulted prior to the adoption of the package, and urges the European institutions to align the different initiatives into a single strategic, holistic work programme avoiding duplication of actions and policies; stresses that the relevant committee of the European Parliament can play an important role in the public scrutiny of harmonised standards mandated by the Commission;

47.  Calls for greater reinforcement, coherence and improvement in the accuracy of the AUWP;

48.   Stresses that the next AUWP needs specifically to address actions to improve coordination between the ICT and non-ICT standards regimes, contribute to the improvement of the rules of the different NSBs, and advance the inclusiveness of ESOs by paying greater attention to the role of the stakeholders listed in Article 5;

49.  Stresses the importance of the interinstitutional dialogue for the preparation of the AUWP, and encourages efforts to involve, prior to the adoption of the AUWP, all relevant stakeholders in an Annual Standardisation Forum to discuss new fields, existing challenges and necessary improvements of the standardisation process;

50.  Encourages Member States to invest in national standardisation strategies which will also help and encourage the public sector, standardisation bodies, societal stakeholders, SMEs and academia at national level to develop and implement individual standardisation action plans;

51.  Welcomes the JIS, and recommends that Parliament also be invited to participate in and contribute to it, underlining that the rules of such public-private partnerships need to be respected by all stakeholders, including EU institutions; calls on the Commission to take a leading role in the implementation of the key actions and recommendations of the JIS and to report back to Parliament by the end of 2017 on the progress achieved;

52.  Welcomes the commitment, made in the context of the JIS, to develop a study on the economic and social impact, including information on policies, risks and outcomes as regards the quality of life, social and employee-related aspects, of standards and their use; invites the Commission to base this study on quantitative and qualitative data, and to analyse both the business models of the standardisation process and the different financial models – including opportunities and challenges – for making access to harmonised standards easily available;

53.  Underlines that standardisation is increasingly recognised as an important contributor to research and development, and that it plays an important role in bridging the gap between research and the market, fosters the dissemination and exploitation of research results, and creates a basis for further innovation;

54.  Calls on the Commission to adopt policies that remove excessive barriers in innovative sectors, with a view to incentivising investment in research and development and in EU standardisation; notes that vertical industries should work out their own roadmaps for standardisation, relying on industry-led processes which, if guided by a strong will to reach common standards, would have the capacity to become worldwide standards; believes that EU standardisation bodies should play a special role in this process;

55.  Urges the parties to the JIS to ensure that research and innovation are better aligned with standard-setting priorities;

56.  Considers that open knowledge and licenses are the best instruments for boosting innovation and technology development; encourages research institutions receiving EU funds to use open patents and licenses in order to secure a greater role in standard- setting;

57.  Supports actions aimed at improving the synergy between standardisation and research communities and in promoting standards at an early stage in research projects; encourages national standardisation bodies to promote standardisation to researchers and the innovation community, including relevant government organisations and funding agencies, and recommends that a specific standardisation chapter be developed under Horizon 2020;

58.  Urges the Commission to encourage the ESOs to ensure that market-relevant services standards reflect the increased servitisation of the economy and are developed with the aims of ensuring the safety and quality of services and of prioritising areas with the highest detriment to consumers, while not encroaching on existing national regulatory requirements, in particular provisions on labour law or collective agreements and bargaining; recognises, furthermore, that service standards often respond to national specificities and that their development is related to the needs of the market, the interests of consumers and the public interest; stresses that the development of European services standards should contribute to the functioning of the internal market for services while increasing transparency, quality and competitiveness and promoting competition, innovation, and consumer protection;

59.  Points out that the standardisation process in Europe must include standards that improve barrier-free accessibility to transport and transport services for people with disabilities and older people;

60.  Is of the opinion that the fast-changing modern world, with its increased technical complexity, leads to the development of increasing numbers of standards and platforms for processing specifications which do not correspond to the standardisation bodies recognised under Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012, and that there are now greater demands when it comes to the involvement of SMEs and microenterprises; stresses the importance of supporting measures to improve SMEs’ access to means of developing and using standards;

61.  Underlines the importance of interconnecting platforms and databases at European level, enabling better interoperability of networks and systems;

62.  Believes that ICT standardisation involves not only the setting of product requirements, but also the development of innovative technologies;

63.  Stresses that uniform (technical) arrangements help to reduce development, production and certification costs, and avoid the duplication of tasks;

64.  Stresses that demographic ageing in Europe requires systematic incorporation of the needs of older persons and persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable members of society, in the development of standards, which are a suitable tool to help achieve an active and healthy society in Europe and to increase the accessibility of products and services for people;

65.  Points out that innovation in the transport and tourism sectors provides enormous opportunities and has a positive impact on both society and EU businesses, especially SMEs and start-ups, and insists on the need to develop new standards, where possible by pursuing a cross-domain approach, and to uphold standardisation in order to ensure the proper implementation of EU initiatives in the field of digitisation, such as Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS), and the development of transport applications within the EU Satellite Navigation Systems (Galileo and EGNOS);

European Standardisation Organisations

66.  Welcomes the role played by the ESOs, but encourages further initiatives to improve their openness, accessibility and transparency, and recommends that their work be guided by European interests;

67.  Recognises that the national delegation principle is fundamental for the European system, but warns that there are differences in terms of resources, technical expertise and stakeholder involvement at national level, and recommends that the work of the national delegations needs to be complemented;

68.  Recognises the importance of timely delivery of standards, as well as references being cited in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJ) in cases of harmonised standards; is aware of the decreasing citation of references of standards in the OJ, and calls on the Commission to investigate and address the reasons for this and remove unnecessary obstacles; recommends, in this regard, greater involvement of Commission experts and the New Approach Consultants in the standardisation process, and calls on the Commission to develop, in conjunction with the ESOs, evaluation guidelines for standardisation so as to help the different departments within the Commission, the ESOs and the New Approach Consultants evaluate standards in a coherent manner;

69.  Repeats that transparent and accessible appeal mechanisms build trust in the ESOs and in the standard-setting processes;

70.  Encourages the use of new ICTs to improve the accessibility and transparency of standardisation processes, such as the CEN-CENELEC eLearning tool for SMEs; considers that the use of digital tools can facilitate stakeholders’ participation in the development of standards and provide information about upcoming, ongoing and finalised standardisation work;

Strategic recommendations

71.  Calls on the Commission to enhance the synergies and coordination between the European institutions, the ESOs, the NSBs and all relevant stakeholder organisations through the Annual Standardisation Forum, whilst also recognising the international context of standards; recognises that the vast majority of standards are developed voluntarily in response to market and consumer needs, and supports this;

  Calls for strict application of Regulation 1025/2012 as regards recognition of Annex III organisations, and for the publication of the reports provided for in Article 24 of the regulation;

73.  Urges the Commission fully to harmonise conditions for Annex III organisations and to ensure the removal of the de facto obstacles to their effective involvement in standardisation;

  Recommends that the membership status, rights and obligations of Annex III organisations, such as the right of appeal, consultative powers, the right to an opinion before a standard is adopted, and access to technical committees and working groups be reviewed within the ESOs to assess whether they meet the requirements of Regulation 1025/2012;

  Calls on the ESOs to ensure that that the ISO-CEN (Vienna) and IEC CENELEC (Frankfurt) agreements will not prevent or jeopardise participation in the standardisation processes of Annex III Organisations or NSBs;

76.  Calls on the Commission and the Member States to promote, facilitate financing for and expedite the deployment of the necessary infrastructure, including through modernising, converting and retrofitting, for the market uptake of new technologies supported by European standards (e.g. alternative fuels infrastructure), in compliance with safety, health and environmental requirements; highlights that infrastructure is a long-term investment and that its standardisation should therefore ensure maximum interoperability and allow for future technological developments and their application;

  Invites the Commission to work with the ESOs and the NSBs to promote easy-to-use contact points of access to standards that can provide assistance and information to the users of standards regarding those which are available and their general specifications, and that can help them find the standards that best match their needs, as well as guidance on their implementation; recommends, furthermore, information and education campaigns at national and EU level to promote the role of standards, and encourages Member States to include relevant professional education courses on standards in their national education systems;

78.  Asks the Commission to develop technology-watch activities so as to identify future ICT developments that could benefit from standardisation, to facilitate the flow and transparency of information necessary for market penetration and the operation of these technologies, and, in this connection, to promote easily accessible and user-friendly evaluation mechanisms via the internet;

79.  Recommends that NSBs need to examine if it is possible to provide access to standards to the extent that the standards user can make an assessment of the relevance of the standard; strongly recommends that NSBs and ESOs, when determining the level of fees relating to standards, take into account the needs of SMEs and stakeholders who are non-commercial users;

80.  Calls on the Commission to prepare a European register listing existing European standards in all official EU languages, which would also include information on the ongoing standardisation work being done by ESOs, existing standardisation mandates, progress made, and decisions containing formal objections;

  Calls on the Commission to monitor international ICT standardisation developments and, if necessary, to support the participation and coordination of European stakeholders in leading positions within appropriate standardisation bodies, and in strategically important standardisation projects, in order to promote the European regulatory model and interests; encourages the use of the Multi-Stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation to bring together ESOs and international ICT standardisation bodies;

82.  Encourages adoption by the EU of the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 for the digitisation of European industry;

83.  Calls on the Member States to use European ICT standards in public procurement procedures in order to improve the quality of public services and foster innovative technologies; stresses, however, that the use of standards should not result in additional barriers, in particular for small businesses seeking to participate in public procurement procedures;

  Calls on the EU institutions, the national governments and the ESOs to develop training guidelines for policymakers so as to help them overcome inconsistencies arising from the use of disparate working methods in different departments and institutions, and to create a standardisation culture and an understanding of how standards processes work and when they can be used;

  Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the Council and the Commission.

  • [1]  OJ C 70 E, 8.3.2012, p. 56.
  • [2]  https://ec.europa.eu/info/european-commissions-open-source-strategy_en

EXPLANATORY STATEMENT

1. Background

On the 1st of June 2016, the European Commission presented a package of Communications outlining the Commission’s vision on how European standard setting should evolve in the next few years.

The package consists of four Communications: Communication on ‘the European standards for the 21st century’, Dedicated Guidance on service standards: ‘Tapping potential of European service standards to help Europe’s consumers and businesses’, Article 24 Report and REFIT evaluation Staff Working Document and the Annual Union work programme for European standardisation for 2017.

The package also includes a Commission decision providing the framework for the Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS), which is a close partnership between public and private organisations to address current challenges in the standard development process and to promote a European standardisation hub, where standards are developed in a timely, open, transparent and inclusive manner.

The Joint Initiative on standardisation is complemented by the European Commission Communication on ‘ICT standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market’ adopted in April 2016. The ICT Communication proposes concrete measures to speed up the ICT standard setting process by focusing on five priority areas: 5G, cloud computing, internet of things, data technologies and cybersecurity.

The overarching Commission standardisation package together with the ICT Standards Communication and with the JIS aims at setting out a single and coherent European Standardisation System (ESS) that adapts to the changing environment, supports multiple policies and brings benefits and predictability to consumers and businesses.

Currently, the European Standardisation policy is developed through different policy instruments, such as the Annual Union Work Programme for European Standardisation (AUWP) and the ICT Rolling Plan and various platforms such as the Committee on Standards and the European Multi-stakeholder Platform on ICT Standardisation.

The Commission in its package acknowledges that there is a need to align those initiatives. In this regard, the Commission is proposing the adoption of the AUWP in July every year, which, as of 2017, will be preceded by an inter-institutional dialogue with the full involvement of the European Parliament and other EU institutions. Each year the inter-institutional dialogue will be based on a single report from the Commission on the implementation of the above mentioned initiatives.

The European Parliament report aims to contribute to the idea of a single and coherent EU standardisation policy, which features higher on the political agenda, and where the priorities are regularly discussed with the European Parliament.

The objectives of the Rapporteur is to contribute to the ongoing debate and to set the European Parliament’s priorities in response to the Commission standardisation package, the Joint initiative on Standardisation and the ICT Communication. Furthermore, the Report will contribute to the first Inter-institutional Dialogue planned for the spring of 2017 and to the AWUP 2018, which will be adopted by the Commission in July 2017.

II. Rapporteur’s general considerations

This Report is based on a number of salient points that the Rapporteur believes are essential to consider when discussing the future of the European standardisation system.

The Rapporteur is of the opinion that standards are an important tool for the operation of the Single Market, to enhance European competitiveness, growth and innovation, to support quality, performance and protection of consumers, business, workers, and environment and to develop interoperability of networks and systems.

However, based on new technologies and the progressive integration of digital solutions in industrial global value chains, as well as the fast evolving international context, the standardisation environment is changing rapidly and a new momentum is needed to respond effectively to the standards needs of industry, consumers, workers and environmental organisations and other stakeholders.

The Rapporteur welcomes the overreaching Commission standardisation package, together with the ICT Standards Communication and with the Joint Initiative on standardisation. Still, the Rapporteur believes that there are a number of practical barriers that need to be addressed in particular to inclusiveness, openness and transparency of the system and representations of stakeholders’ organisation from Annex III.

The Rapporteur believes that most successful standards are the ones that have been developed with the broad support of the industry, public authorities, consumers, workers and citizens. Therefore, the Rapporteur supports the unique European system, which takes into account not only the contributions of the big industry and public authorities, but as well as of SMEs, consumers and citizens.

The Rapporteur believes that an efficient European standardisation system needs to be based on a close partnership and cooperation between industry, public authorities, standardisation bodies and other interested parties, which are working together in a system founded on inclusiveness, openness, transparency and consensus to define strategic technical or quality requirements of current or future products, production processes, services or methods.

The Rapporteur further recognises that standards are a voluntary market-driven tool providing technical requirements and guidance that can help implement European legislation and policies when they are developed in a transparent and inclusive way, but stresses that the political decisions regarding the level of protection of health, safety and environment should be left to the legislator

Last but not least, the Report recognises the importance of promoting European standards and the European standardisation system at a global level and calls on the Commission and on Member States to work towards this direction to pay more attention to the global role and relevance of standards, when getting involved in standardisation work.

III. ICT Standards

The Report recognises that interoperability and standardisation each play a key role in the digital transformation. Convergence of technologies and the digitalisation of society, businesses and public services blurs the traditional separation between general standardisation and ICT standardisation, but the Commission is still proposing different policy instruments to plan ICT standardisation and non-ICT standardisation activities.

Therefore, the report calls on the Commission to clearly identifying the alignment between the Rolling Plan and the Priority ICT Standards Plan, the package ‘Standards for the 21st century’ and the Annual Work Programme and makes some suggestions on how to improve the Internet of things (IoT).

The Rapporteur stresses that Europe should support open standardisation processes as a driver of innovation, interconnectivity and deployment of technologies based on fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing terms (‘FRAND commitment’) to address the legitimate interests of both SEP holders and of potential licensees and safeguard that standardisation is a level playing field, where companies of all sizes can collaborate in a mutually beneficial manner.

IV. Need for a Holistic approach for European standards for the 21st Century

The Rapporteur is of the opinion that there is more to the standardisation process than just being solely tied only with the economic aspects. Stresses that stakeholders involved in the development of standards must adopt a holistic and a common approach whereby SMEs, consumer and citizen goals, particularly those related to economic, social, health and environmental concerns are fully integrated into the standardisation process.

Furthermore, the Rapporteur regrets that the European Parliament was not properly consulted prior to the Commission adopting the package and urges the Commission together with the other European institutions, ESOs and other relevant stakeholders to align the different initiatives into a single strategic holistic work programme.

The Report also suggests greater reinforcement, improvement and coherence of the AWUP in particular aligning ICT standardisation and non-ICT standardisation activities and creating an Annual Standardisation Forum prior to the adoption of the AWUP for a better involvement of different stakeholders in the Inter-Institutional dialogue.

The Rapporteur welcomes the Joint Initiative on Standardisation (JIS) and suggests that the study on the economic and social impact needs to also include data on the impact of the business model of the standardisation process, as well as on the different financial models.

In its Communication on services standards, the Commission promotes the development of standards in the services sector. The Rapporteur supports the Commission approach but believes that this should be done with the objective of better understanding of stakeholder needs and of prioritising areas with the highest detriment to consumers, without encroaching upon existing national regulatory requirements and in particular labour laws provisions, collective agreements and collective bargaining.

The Rapporteur also stresses the importance of supporting SMEs participation in the standards development process and in using the available standards.

V. European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs)

The Rapporteur also makes some suggestions on how to improve the accessibility and transparency of standardisation procedures in CEN, CENELEC and ETSI and how to strengthen the system by safeguarding that the development of standards remains open, transparent and guided by European interests, providing equal access and taking into account the interests of all stakeholders who wish to influence the standardisation process and to take part in developing standards.

VI. Strategic recommendations

The Report makes some strategic recommendations to be taken into account by the European Commission in the Inter-institutional dialogue and the annual Work Programme for 2018.

The Rapporteur suggests that the Commission needs to enhance the synergies and coordination between the SSOs and stakeholders’ organisations and to adopt an action plan for the removal of de facto obstacles to an effective involvement of Annex III organisations. The report suggests strategically giving Annex III Organisations specific member status with specific rights and obligations and to fully harmonise conditions for those organisations at national and European level.

To further improve access of SMEs to the standardisation process, the Rapporteur suggests the creation of easy-to-use single points of access to provide assistance and information for standards’ users.

To improve the key role of the ESS at global level, the Rapporteur suggests that the Commission need to monitor international ICT standardisation and if necessary finance the participation of European experts at international level to promote the European regulatory model and interests.

Finally, the Rapporteur suggests increasing awareness and knowledge about standards by developing Guidelines for education and training of policy-makers to explain how standardisation works and when it can be used.

OPINION of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (29.3.2017)

for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

on European standards – implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012
(2016/2274(INI))

Rapporteur (*): Hans-Olaf Henkel

(*) Associated committee – Rule 54 of the Rules of Procedure

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Industry, Research and Energy calls on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

1.  Stresses that industry-led, voluntary and consensus-driven information and communications technology (ICT) standardisation based on openness, transparency, impartiality, coherence and inclusiveness should be successful and effective, to the advantage of European consumers, workers and industry;

2.  Highlights the fact that ICT standards are essential for completing the Digital Single Market, facilitating the transformation to a data-driven digitised economy and supporting the global competitiveness of European industry; stresses that ICT standardisation must be an essential part of the European industrial strategy, as interoperability allows for economies of scale, enables innovation and supports market access and job creation;

3.  Acknowledges the current challenging context of digitisation for all sectors and the increasing pace of technological change and proliferation of standard-setting fora, and recognises the need to adapt EU processes for setting standard to these new realities;

4.  Recognises the strategic importance of ICT standardisation and calls for a continuous dialogue between Parliament, the Commission, the Council and the European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs);

5.  Stresses the need for greater cooperation within the ICT standardisation community, in particular between ESOs, and calls on the ESOs to prepare a common annual work programme identifying cross-cutting areas of common interest;

6.  Recognises the strategic importance of a coordinated and optimised EU presence in global ICT fora and international standardisation organisations;

7.  Asks the Commission to rationalise the number of platforms and coordination mechanisms;

8.  Calls on the Commission to actively promote European standards internationally and to develop an agenda for closer cooperation based on specific areas of common interest with international partners;

9.  Stresses the global nature of ICT standards and technical specifications, and calls for continued commitment across the ESOs to introduce global standards in Europe and for intensified cooperation with third countries through a transparent, inclusive, consensus-oriented process, and asks the Commission to identify proven best standards for public procurement purposes with due regard for EU legislation and policies; calls on the Commission to accelerate the procedure of listing European ICT standards in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU);

10.  Stresses that fair trade agreements between EU and non-EU states can contribute to the formulation common international standardisation rules;

11.  Stresses that international cooperation on standards helps ensure transparency, efficiency and coherence, and creates a competition-friendly context for the industrial sector – a good example is the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) World Forum for Harmonization of Vehicle Regulations (WP.29), which was set up for the ICT sector;

12.  Considers Commission and Member State involvement with EU industry to be a crucial means of facilitating the adoption of global standards with a European stamp in the definition and rolling out of 5G technologies;

13.  Urges the Commission to consider the convergence with third countries on 5G, cloud computing, data and cyber security;

14.  Encourages the Commission and the ESOs to provide technical assistance beyond the EU in supporting the internationalisation of European standards, institutional designs and standardisation processes;

15.  Calls on the Commission to start implementing the Joint Initiative on Standardisation as quickly as possible, given that this is provided for in the single market strategy;

16.  Underlines that standardisation is increasingly recognised as an important contributor to research and development, and that it plays an important role in bridging the gap between research and the market, fosters the dissemination and exploitation of research results, and creates a basis for further innovation;

17.  Calls on the Commission to adopt policies that remove excessive barriers in innovative sectors, with a view to incentivising investments in research and development, and in EU standardisation; notes that vertical industries should work out their own roadmaps for standardisation, relying on industry-led processes which, if guided by a strong will to reach common standards, would have the capacity to become worldwide standards; believes that EU standardisation bodies should play a special role in this process;

18.  Urges the parties to the Joint Initiative to ensure that research and innovation is better aligned with standard-setting priorities;

19.  Calls on the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) to pursue and promote cross-sectoral collaboration, and to ensure easy, agile, transparent and accessible standardisation processes, especially for ICT standards affecting traditional industries, with the appropriate involvement of all relevant stakeholders, such as the manufacturing industries, SMEs, social and societal stakeholders, and public authorities;

20.  Stresses that digitisation is proceeding at a rapid pace and is a major driver of the economy; underlines the importance of effective digitisation of vertical industries in order to benefit SMEs, and especially consumers at European, national, regional and local level, and the need to represent their concerns appropriately in international ICT standardisation;

21.  Takes note of the remaining barriers to SME participation in standardisation and uptake standards, including the lack of awareness; calls for a simple and accessible framework for standardisation in support of all SMEs across all ESOs;

22.  Welcomes ETSI’s efforts to provide easy access for European SMEs, and welcomes as well its long-term strategy (2016-2021) for addressing specifically cross-sectoral collaboration;

23.  Points out that standardisation in the fields of goods, services and ICT improves market access, especially for SMEs;

24.  Highlights the fact that ICT standardisation requires a balanced and effective policy for intellectual property rights, and underlines that the FRAND system of licensing (that is, the application of fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms) contributes to an important balance between innovators and technology users; welcomes the recent landmark ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Huawei v ZTE, and calls on the Commission to ensure the efficient settlement of disputes, to support return on investment and to ensure wide access to standardised technology; underlines the concerns that a lack of legal clarity can undermine the fairness of the system; points out that SMEs are especially disadvantaged in the licencing process, and suggests that greater transparency and guidance with regard to the licencing conditions would increase the use of standards;

25.  Stresses that it is for the parties to negotiate a FRAND licensing agreement on the portfolio of patents required to implement a standard, and that a fair royalty reflects the value that patented technology contributes to the product;

26.  Calls on the Commission to publish bi-annual reports evidencing actual cases of: (a) unlicensed SEP use (i.e. infringements) lasting for 18 months or more; and (b) issues regarding access to standards due to systematic non-compliance with FRAND commitments;

27.  Notes the need for an evidence-based approach in monitoring and further developing the licensing framework in order to ensure a dynamic ecosystem that creates added value and jobs;

28.  Considers that open knowledge and licenses are the best instruments for boosting innovation and technology development; encourages research institutions receiving EU funds to use open patents and licenses in order to gain a greater role in standard setting;

29.  Acknowledges improvements made in the process of anticipating ICT standardisation; highlights the fact that speedy and timely adoption and publication of ICT standards is crucial, and calls on the parties concerned to take all necessary measures to improve the processes and increase certainty;

30.  Reiterates that the Commission has a crucial role to play in determining the speed at which standards can be market ready, and encourages the Commission to agree, in conjunction with the ESOs, on a clear process to ensure the timely publishing of standards in the OJEU;

31.  Highlights the fact that timely delivery of standards is crucial, including the citation of their references in the OJEU in the case of harmonised standards;

32.  Acknowledges the success of the New Approach and calls for the preservation of its principles;

33.  Welcomes the five ICT priority areas identified by the Commission: 5G, cloud computing, the Internet of Things (IoT), data and cyber security, all of which are essential technology building blocks on which equally important areas such as eHealth, smart and efficient energy use, intelligent transport systems, smart cities and advanced manufacturing will rely;

34.  Stresses the need to create an open, interoperable ICT ecosystem based on the five ICT priority standards, encouraging competition in value creation on which innovation can flourish; believes that:

–  5G standards should allow a real generation shift in terms of capacity, reliability and latency, allowing it to cope with the expected increase in traffic and the different requirements of the services that will be built on top of it;

–  cybersecurity standards should enable security-by-design and comply with privacy-by-design principles, support resilience of networks and risk management, and be able to cope with the rapid development of cyber threats to all ICT technologies developments;

–  cloud standards should converge to allow interoperability in all aspects of the cloud, enabling portability;

–  data standards should support cross-sectorial interdisciplinary flows of data, achieving better interoperability of data and metadata, including semantification, and contribute to the development of a big-data reference architecture;

–  IoT standards should tackle the current fragmentation without hampering innovation in a sector that is developing very fast;

35.  Recognises that efficient 5G communication networks depend critically on common standards to ensure interoperability and security, but recalls that the development of a very high capacity network is the backbone of a reliable 5G network;

36.  Notes that a data-driven economy depends on a wider ICT ecosystem to succeed, including highly educated experts as well as skilled people, in order to terminate a digital divide and exclusion;

37.  Encourages EU adoption of the Reference Architecture Model for Industry 4.0 for the digitisation of the European industry;

38.  Underlines the importance of interconnecting platforms and databases at European level, enabling better interoperability of networks and systems;

39.  Underlines that interoperability and performance of equipment, technical solutions and services are at the centre of ICT standardisation;

40.  Believes that ICT standardisation involves not only the setting of product requirements, but also the development of innovative technologies;

41.  Calls on the Commission to promote European standards that support open-source tools capable of ensuring equal access to equities developed at European level;

42.  Calls on the Commission to take the lead in promoting intersectoral, cross-lingual standards and in supporting privacy-friendly, reliable and secure services;

43.  Stresses that uniform (technical) arrangements help to reduce development, production and certification costs, and avoid the duplication of tasks;

44.  Stresses that standardisation also implies the development of a unitary process that is sustainable and transferable to all Member States;

45.  Asks the Commission to provide Parliament with an annual update, in the form of a regular informal exchange, on the progress of ICT standardisation and its contribution to EU competitiveness and growth.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

22.3.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

61

0

0

Members present for the final vote

Nikolay Barekov, Bendt Bendtsen, Xabier Benito Ziluaga, José Blanco López, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, Reinhard Bütikofer, Jerzy Buzek, Angelo Ciocca, Edward Czesak, Pilar del Castillo Vera, Fredrick Federley, Ashley Fox, Adam Gierek, András Gyürk, Rebecca Harms, Eva Kaili, Kaja Kallas, Krišjānis Kariņš, Seán Kelly, Peter Kouroumbashev, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Janusz Lewandowski, Paloma López Bermejo, Edouard Martin, Angelika Mlinar, Nadine Morano, Dan Nica, Angelika Niebler, Morten Helveg Petersen, Michel Reimon, Herbert Reul, Paul Rübig, Massimiliano Salini, Algirdas Saudargas, Neoklis Sylikiotis, Dario Tamburrano, Evžen Tošenovský, Claude Turmes, Vladimir Urutchev, Kathleen Van Brempt, Henna Virkkunen, Martina Werner, Lieve Wierinck, Anna Záborská, Flavio Zanonato, Carlos Zorrinho

Substitutes present for the final vote

Mario Borghezio, Soledad Cabezón Ruiz, Jens Geier, Françoise Grossetête, Benedek Jávor, Olle Ludvigsson, Sofia Sakorafa, Anne Sander, Maria Spyraki, Marco Zullo

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

Isabella Adinolfi, Arndt Kohn, Maria Noichl, Pavel Poc

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

61

+

ALDE

Fredrick Federley, Kaja Kallas, Angelika Mlinar, Morten Helveg Petersen, Lieve Wierinck

ECR

Nikolay Barekov, Edward Czesak, Ashley Fox, Zdzisław Krasnodębski, Evžen Tošenovský

EFDD

Isabella Adinolfi, Dario Tamburrano, Marco Zullo

ENF

Mario Borghezio, Angelo Ciocca

GUE

Xabier Benito Ziluaga, Paloma López Bermejo, Sofia Sakorafa, Neoklis Sylikiotis

PPE

Bendt Bendtsen, Jerzy Buzek, Cristian-Silviu Buşoi, Françoise Grossetête, András Gyürk, Krišjānis Kariņš, Seán Kelly, Janusz Lewandowski, Nadine Morano, Angelika Niebler, Herbert Reul, Paul Rübig, Massimiliano Salini, Anne Sander, Algirdas Saudargas, Maria Spyraki, Vladimir Urutchev, Henna Virkkunen, Anna Záborská, Pilar del Castillo Vera

S&D

José Blanco López, Soledad Cabezón Ruiz, Jens Geier, Adam Gierek, Eva Kaili, Arndt Kohn, Peter Kouroumbashev, Miapetra Kumpula-Natri, Olle Ludvigsson, Edouard Martin, Dan Nica, Maria Noichl, Pavel Poc, Kathleen Van Brempt, Martina Werner, Flavio Zanonato, Carlos Zorrinho

VERTS/ALE

Reinhard Bütikofer, Rebecca Harms, Benedek Jávor, Michel Reimon, Claude Turmes

0

-

 

 

0

0

 

 

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

OPINION of the Committee on Transport and Tourism (11.4.2017)

for the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

on European standards – implementation of Regulation (EU) No 1025/2012
(2016/2274(INI))

Rapporteur: Pavel Telička

SUGGESTIONS

The Committee on Transport and Tourism calls on the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection, as the committee responsible, to incorporate the following suggestions into its motion for a resolution:

A.  whereas the transport sector has been at the forefront in the development and deployment of standards that are necessary for the creation of the Single European Transport Area;

1.  Welcomes the Commission communication on ICT Standardisation Priorities for the Digital Single Market; believes that encouraging EU-wide standardisation will contribute to the dismantling of barriers in the internal market, achieving EU policy objectives and addressing current challenges in the transport and tourism sectors, such as:

a.  achieving climate, environmental and energy efficiency goals by developing and supporting sustainable transport and tourism solutions, such as electric and hybrid cars, alternative fuels and door-to-door intermodal chain services, and by supporting initiatives like Clean Sky;

b.  improving safety by further supporting automation and boosting the efficiency of transport traffic management systems both at local and international levels, such as the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS), European global satellite-based navigation systems (EGNOS and Galileo), River Information Services (RIS), Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS), the Vessel Traffic Management Information System (VTMIS) and the new generation European air traffic management system (SESAR);

c.  bringing about a competitive Single European Transport Area by dismantling obstacles, by promoting the integration of systems across all modes of transport, through strengthened interoperability, intermodality and interconnectivity, and by including transport solutions that are emerging from the collaborative economy;

d.  increasing the attractiveness, accessibility, quality and choice of transport and tourism services for all passengers and consumers, by providing them with more user-friendly and customised products and information;

2.  Points out that innovation in the transport and tourism sectors provides enormous opportunities and has a positive impact on both society and EU businesses, especially SMEs and start-ups, and insists on the need to develop new standards, where possible by pursuing a cross-domain approach, and to uphold standardisation in order to ensure the proper implementation of EU initiatives in the field of digitalisation, such as Cooperative Intelligent Transport Systems (C-ITS) and the development of transport applications within the EU Satellite Navigation Systems (Galileo and EGNOS);

3.  Notes that ICT standardisation will be beneficial for the development of transport- and tourism-related services and multimodal transport solutions; calls on the Commission, together with the European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs), to attach greater importance to this development when implementing its priority action plan for ICT standardisation, and in particular to explore the potential role of standardisation to support the technological changes and new business models emerging in the tourism sector; calls on the Commission to take swift action to promote the development of integrated smart ticketing and information services and new mobility concepts such as Mobility-as-a-Service;

4.  Calls on the Commission and Member States to promote, facilitate financing for and expedite the deployment of the necessary infrastructure, including through modernising, converting and retrofitting, for the market uptake of new technologies supported by European standards (e.g. alternative fuels infrastructure), in compliance with safety, health and environmental requirements; highlights that infrastructure is a long-term investment and that its standardisation should therefore ensure maximum interoperability and allow for future technological developments and their application;

5.  Underlines that given the context of global competition and the international nature of transport, the development of international standards is indispensable both to ensure interoperability and to broaden market opportunities for the EU industries; calls on the Commission to actively continue promoting the development of European standards at international fora;

6.  Regrets the fact that differences between national standards, such as those in the freight and logistics sector, remain a barrier to the internal market, and therefore calls on the Commission and the ESOs to develop appropriate standards to harmonise conditions at national level whenever deemed necessary, with a view to removing any possible barriers to the internal market; underlines the need to seek a cross-modal harmonisation of standards in this respect;

7.  Points out, moreover, that in addition to preventing market fragmentation, standardisation can significantly contribute to reducing the administrative burden and transport costs for all businesses (e.g. e-documents) and for SMEs in particular, and can facilitate the proper enforcement of EU legislation (e.g. digital tachographs, electronic toll systems);

8.  Calls on the Commission, furthermore, to pay attention to and provide assistance for candidate countries’ efforts to harmonise their standards with European standards, in order to minimise existing bottlenecks;

9.  Believes that ‘open standards’ in ICT prevent a lock-in of consumers, reduce costs, foster competition and innovation and guarantee interoperability; stresses the importance of open, transparent and inclusive standardisation processes; encourages the Commission and the ESOs to further promote open standards as a pillar of the Single European Transport Area architecture, while fully respecting the specific needs of the transport sector;

10.  Strongly believes that open data remains an essential element, particularly in the transport sector, for reaping all the benefits of the Digital Single Market, such as the promotion and development of multimodal transport; stresses, therefore, that more legal certainty, mainly in terms of ownership and responsibility, is required; calls on the Commission, therefore, to publish, without any further delay, a roadmap for the development of standards aimed at the harmonisation of publicly funded transport data and programming interfaces in order to boost data-intensive innovations and the provision of new transport services;

11.  Takes note of the cybersecurity concerns and the specificities of the threats in the transport sector; urges the Commission to address these specificities when adopting its recommendations on cybersecurity standards that are expected by the end of 2017, as a first step towards a comprehensive strategy on cybersecurity in the transport sector;

12.  Encourages the Commission to compile statistics with a view to better evaluating the impact of digitalisation and ICT on transport and tourism;

13.  Points out that the standardisation process in Europe must include standards that improve barrier-free accessibility to transport and transport services for people with disabilities and older people.

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

Date adopted

11.4.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

43

2

0

Members present for the final vote

Daniela Aiuto, Lucy Anderson, Inés Ayala Sender, Georges Bach, Izaskun Bilbao Barandica, Deirdre Clune, Michael Cramer, Luis de Grandes Pascual, Andor Deli, Isabella De Monte, Ismail Ertug, Jacqueline Foster, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Merja Kyllönen, Miltiadis Kyrkos, Bogusław Liberadzki, Peter Lundgren, Marian-Jean Marinescu, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Jens Nilsson, Markus Pieper, Salvatore Domenico Pogliese, Tomasz Piotr Poręba, Gabriele Preuß, Dominique Riquet, Massimiliano Salini, David-Maria Sassoli, Claudia Schmidt, Claudia Țapardel, Keith Taylor, Pavel Telička, István Ujhelyi, Peter van Dalen, Wim van de Camp, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Janusz Zemke, Roberts Zīle, Kosma Złotowski, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska

Substitutes present for the final vote

Jakop Dalunde, Maria Grapini, Matthijs van Miltenburg, Henna Virkkunen

Substitutes under Rule 200(2) present for the final vote

John Stuart Agnew, Jiří Maštálka

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE ASKED FOR OPINION

43

+

ALDE

Izaskun Bilbao Barandica, Dominique Riquet, Pavel Telička, Matthijs van Miltenburg

ECR

Jacqueline Foster, Tomasz Piotr Poręba, Roberts Zīle, Kosma Złotowski, Peter van Dalen

EFDD

Daniela Aiuto

GUE/NGL

Merja Kyllönen, Jiří Maštálka

PPE

Georges Bach, Deirdre Clune, Andor Deli, Dieter-Lebrecht Koch, Elżbieta Katarzyna Łukacijewska, Marian-Jean Marinescu, Cláudia Monteiro de Aguiar, Markus Pieper, Salvatore Domenico Pogliese, Massimiliano Salini, Claudia Schmidt, Henna Virkkunen, Elissavet Vozemberg-Vrionidi, Luis de Grandes Pascual, Wim van de Camp

S&D

Lucy Anderson, Inés Ayala Sender, Isabella De Monte, Ismail Ertug, Maria Grapini, Miltiadis Kyrkos, Bogusław Liberadzki, Jens Nilsson, Gabriele Preuß, David-Maria Sassoli, Claudia Țapardel, István Ujhelyi, Janusz Zemke

Verts/ALE

Michael Cramer, Jakop Dalunde, Keith Taylor

2

-

EFDD

Peter Lundgren, John Stuart Agnew

0

0

 

 

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention

INFORMATION ON ADOPTION IN COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

Date adopted

30.5.2017

 

 

 

Result of final vote

+:

–:

0:

34

0

2

Members present for the final vote

Dita Charanzová, Carlos Coelho, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, Daniel Dalton, Nicola Danti, Dennis de Jong, Pascal Durand, Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz, Evelyne Gebhardt, Sergio Gutiérrez Prieto, Robert Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Antonio López-Istúriz White, Eva Maydell, Marlene Mizzi, Christel Schaldemose, Andreas Schwab, Olga Sehnalová, Jasenko Selimovic, Igor Šoltes, Ivan Štefanec, Catherine Stihler, Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Mylène Troszczynski, Mihai Ţurcanu, Anneleen Van Bossuyt, Marco Zullo

Substitutes present for the final vote

Biljana Borzan, Birgit Collin-Langen, Edward Czesak, Anna Hedh, Kaja Kallas, Franz Obermayr, Adam Szejnfeld, Marc Tarabella, Sabine Verheyen

FINAL VOTE BY ROLL CALL IN COMMITTEE RESPONSIBLE

34

+

ALDE

ECR

EFDD

GUE/NGL

PPE

 

 

S&D

 

 

Verts/ALE

 

 

Dita Charanzová, Kaja Kallas, Jasenko Selimovic

Edward Czesak, Daniel Dalton, Anneleen Van Bossuyt

Robert Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, Marco Zullo

Dennis de Jong

Carlos Coelho, Birgit Collin-Langen, Anna Maria Corazza Bildt, Ildikó Gáll-Pelcz, Antonio López-Istúriz White, Eva Maydell, Andreas Schwab, Ivan Štefanec, Adam Szejnfeld, Róża Gräfin von Thun und Hohenstein, Mihai Ţurcanu, Sabine Verheyen

Biljana Borzan, Nicola Danti, Evelyne Gebhardt, Sergio Gutiérrez Prieto, Anna Hedh, Liisa Jaakonsaari, Marlene Mizzi, Christel Schaldemose, Olga Sehnalová, Catherine Stihler, Marc Tarabella

Pascal Durand, Igor Šoltes

0

-

 

 

2

0

ENF

Franz Obermayr, Mylène Troszczynski

Key to symbols:

+  :  in favour

-  :  against

0  :  abstention