In the European Union, Standards play a useful and powerful role in helping to create the single market by supporting a series of legislation called New Approach directives. This European-wide legislation sets the key requirements that products need to meet so that they can be sold across the whole European Union.
New Approach directives are special in that they do not contain technical details, they contain broad safety requirements. The translation of these requirements into technical solutions must be done by the manufacturers. One of the commonly accepted and best ways to do this, is via European Standards. These standards are called harmonised European Product Standards and mandated from the EU Commission to CEN.
The fulfilment of these product standards gives the presumption of conformity with the directive for which they have been developed for, and allows the manufacturer to affix CE marking on the product if appropriate.
