Technical Standards and Regulations Directive 98/34/EC
Directive 98/34/EC (as amended by Directive 98/48/EC) covers information society services, in addition to all industrially manufactured products and agricultural products. The Directive seeks to prevent the creation of new technical barriers to trade and lays down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations. It applies to all member States, the European Economic Area (Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein), EFTA (Switzerland) and Turkey.
Technical regulations
Member States are obliged to notify to the Commission, in draft, proposed technical regulations and to observe a three month standstill period before the regulation is made or brought into force. This is to provide an opportunity for the Commission and other Member States to comment if they consider that the proposed regulation has the potential to create a technical barrier to trade (the Commission circulates the notified drafts to all Member States).
If a comment perceives the potential barrier to trade to be a serious one, this has the effect of extending the standstill period for a further three months.
The Directive applies to industrially manufactured products and agricultural products, and information society services which are defined as services supplied at a distance by electronic means and at the individual request of a recipient of services.
Central Units have been set up in the Member States to administer the notification procedure on behalf of their Government Departments.
We act as the Central Unit for the UK and receive other Member States notifications for onward transmission to the relevant Department, as well as being the conduit for Departments' notifications of their proposed technical regulations and also for their comments on other Member States' notifications. Departments involve industry as appropriate in their comments.
Further information on Directive 98/34/EC, as a one page flyer, is available from our publication 'Directive 98/34/EC: Technical Standards & Regulations Directive - procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical regulations and rules on information society services'.
For Government Departments / Agencies wishing to know more about the Directive and the notification system, guidance for officials is also available. Government Departments / Agencies should use "Form A" (PDF, 1.1 Mb) with associated guidance document (PDF, 279 Kb) for notifying proposed technical regulations.
Standards
The procedure for the notification of proposed new standards is administered by the recognised national standardisation bodies in the Member States. In the UK, the British Standards Institution (BSI) administers this service.
New technical regulations
The European Commission's website gives information about proposals for new technical regulations from EU Member States and information on how to subscribe to their mailing list to receive automatic notifications relevant to a sector. If you see a proposal which might create barriers to trade then let us know, see Contacts below. If a Member State's existing technical regulation is causing a barrier to trade the Action Single Market Unit may be able to help
Other notification systems
WTO Members are required to notify the WTO Secretariat of all proposed government regulations and conformity assessment procedures that might significantly affect international trade. The UK WTO/TBT Enquiry Point notifies the WTO Secretariat of all regulations falling outside the harmonised field (i.e. concluded at European level) that are devised and implemented nationally, which fall within the notification requirements and which might significantly affect trade. Regulations that fall to be notified under Directive 98/34/EC may also be required, in certain cases, to be notified under the WTO/TBT procedure. For more information, see BIS's Technical Barriers to Trade pages.
The Commission also has a website on TBT issues and it includes information on the differences between the TBT and Directive 98/34 notification systems.
