Standardization of Construction products in Europe
Since the late 1980s, the European Commission is trying to harmonise construction products for the EEA (European Economic Area). This is preferably committed using harmonised product standards and relating test standards.
Reponsible for the preparation of standards is CEN, the European Standardisation Institute, located in Brussels. CEN structures its tasks into Technical Committees, TC's and Working Groups, WG's with respect to the different industries and work items. For standards to be harmonized, CEN has to regard for each of the industry sectors a so called "mandate" prepared by Directorate General, DG "GROWTH" of the European Commission, EC. We are just about in a transformation process, changing the procedures of a mandate to a so called "Standardisation Request" SR, which will substitute the former mandates.
The standardisation of construction hardware products is a part of CEN/TC/33, Doors, windows, shutters, building hardware and curtain walling. Construction hardware is delt with in TC33's Working Group 4, TC/33/WG4.
Thus, ARGE and its members are mainly involved into the tasks of WG4. You will find the structure and brief descriptions of their work in the submenus on this page.
