UK INCREASES INFLUENCE ON EU SAFETY LEGISLATION
December 1st 2008 The BSIF Test and Certification Association has notified bodies and accredited certification bodies and test houses as members. This association has recognised for some time the importance of maintaining and developing the ability of the UK to influence EU law and directives affecting the safety industry. The EU structure has a mechanism whereby these organisations can impact directly on the EU Commission. Known as Horizontal and Vertical Groups, these committees are outside any political control and provide an exceedingly valuable and effective means of influencing the ways in which future legislation is drafted.
Over the past few years, this BSIF Association has set out to provide these EU Groups with a British chairman. When this aim was being developed, no group had a chairman from the UK. Now, out of some fourteen groups, seven are chaired by representatives of the BSIF. There is a tangible benefit in ensuring that safety product legislation remains as simple as possible without complicated enforcement. Also, the fact that many of these meetings are now held in the UK - saving participants considerable travel and accommodation expense and ensuring a stronger UK participation in meetings is a definite advantage. More articles from BSIF Enterprise: | 
