6. HARMONIZATION AND THE „NEW-STYLE” DIRECTIVES
Fill in the Blanks!
Harmonization can also mean co-ordinating national technical rules so that products and services can be traded freely throughout the EU. Contrary to popular myth, this does not mean pointlessly standardizing everything from the curvature of cucumbers to the colour of carrots. Often it simply means that EU countries recognize one another's safety rules.
Fill in the Blanks!
Craig, and Burca understand the "new approach to harmonization" as move away from hierarchy and classic Community method (CCM) toward more flexible alternative governance modes. According to Craig, and Burca, the new approach bases on four principles: 1) legislative harmonization is limited to the adoption by means of , of the essential safety requirements (or other requirements of the general interest) with which products put on the market must conform, and which should therefore enjoy free movement throughout the Community; 2) the task of drawing up the technical specifications needed for the production and placing on the market of products conforming to the essential requirements established by the Directives, while taking into account the current stage of , is entrusted to organizations competent in the standardization area; 3) these technical specifications are not mandatory and maintain their status of voluntary standards; 4) but at the same time national authorities are obliged to recognize that products manufactured in conformity with harmonized standards (or, provisionally, with national standards) are presumed to conform to the "essential requirements" established by the Directive. (This signifies that the producer has the choice of not manufacturing in conformity with the standards but that in this event he has an obligation to prove that his products conform to the essential requirements of the Directive).
On the other hand, for this system to operate it is necessary that the standards offer a guarantee of quality with regard to the "essential requirements" established by the Directives, and on the other hand that the public authorities keep intact their responsibility for the protection of (or other requirements envisaged) on their territory.
Craig, and Burca note several elements in this new approach to harmonization. The first is that although directives will continue to be used to set basic requirements, they are to be limited to the setting of "essential requirements" which are necessary to ensure public safety and other general interests, meaning that the degree of detail and prescriptiveness in the legislation is to be . Secondly, the task of setting technical standards for the products which have to meet these essential requirements is to be carried out not by the EU legislative institutions themselves, but by European standardization bodies, which are known as CN and CENELEC, which act with the agreement of the Commission. Thus Craig, and Burca see the devolution of aspects of policy-making to bodies other than the formal EU lawmaking , in this case to private standard-setting organizations composed of representatives of national standard-setting organizations, which are in turn generally financed by industry and by governments. Thirdly, the standards set by these bodies are not compulsory, but remain . Thus, Craig, and Burca see the new approach of harmonization as shifting away from the three dimensions of earlier hierarchical governance - the monopoly of central institutional actors, the degree of prescriptive detail, and the formally compulsory nature of the norms.
Craig, Burca (2011), EU Law. Text, Cases, and Materials (Oxford University press), 161-163.
