prEN

Postal services - Quality of service - Extension of existing standards to new EU members prEN

Scope

By 2004 the European Union will be enlarged by the accession of a number of additional European countries, and preparing the additional countries for using the standards is a highly important subject. The new CEN M/312 mandate provides therefore for a dedicated Work Item to work on these issues.

The work item will produce amendments to the existing Standards or additional guidance so that they can be used in a European Union enlarged by the accession of a number of additional European countries.

The need, based on requirements of the European Commission, for application of these standards in the short run is given for EU member countries only and the steps to be considered before the standards can be implemented may require a substantial period of time.

In terms of the domestic measurement system every single member state will have to undertake these steps on its own. To ensure that new EU member countries are able to comply with the standards when joining the European Union it is therefore highly recommended that pre-accession countries should start to undertake the necessary steps as soon as possible. As far as cross-border flows are concerned this will need to be done by present EU members as well as pre-accession countries.

As far as postal quality of service is concerned, five standards have been approved and one other draft standard is in preparation within CEN/TC331/WG1. The scope of this Work Item shall cover all six standards. It is expected however that a large part of the concept (and work experience) for the enlargement of the EU which will be considered for EN 13850 will also be valid for the other standards, and therefore much less work will be needed for each new case.