The signing ceremony took place in June in Amsterdam, under the patronage of the Dutch Presidency of the European Council. Euralarm was one of the 54 signatories of the document and one of the few representing a specific industrial sector. Others were the EU Commission, represented by Elżbieta Bieńkowska, European Commissioner for the Single Market and Industry, Dutch Minister of Economy Henk Kamp representing the Presidency, and various European and national standardisation organisations and diverse broad industrial representations.

Although not directed exclusively at the electronic fire safety and security market, the Joint Initiative on Standardisation includes many proposals Euralarm has long supported. Among them is the proposition of a single standard for market access in Europe, first on the list of ‘values’ defining the basis for the initiative. It also includes a number of potential actions in line with Euralarm’s strategic priorities, such as encouraging the development of European service standards, programmes for education in standardisation, the creation of a roundtable with the industry to ensure the market relevance of standards, and linking innovation with standardisation.

One ‘pilot project’ described in the document is to aid the implementation of the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) through standards. A high priority for Euralarm, which has repeatedly called for a review of the standardisation process under the CPR. 

Euralarm is now part of a Steering Group chaired by the EU Commission, driving and monitoring the Joint Initiative on Standardisation. The first meeting of the Steering Group was planned to take place at the end of June 2016.

The signing of the initiative was part of a day-long Single Market Conference, featuring experts’ workshops addressing aspects of the Single European Market, and resulting in a ‘message from Amsterdam’. Keynote speeches were given during the event by a number of high profile personalities including Dutch Prime Minister Rutte, EU Commission Director-General Lowri.