1. Launch of the SBS Lift Forum on Standardisation
Christel Davidson, SBS Director
Brussels, 13 December 2017

2. Mission of SBS
To represent the interests of SMEs in the standardisation process at European level
To raise their awareness for standardisation
To motivate them to become involved in the standardisation process

3. Despite being a very young organisation (created in 2013), SBS already count 22 members. SBS members are national or European sectoral or cross-sectoral associations representation SME interests.
Members are active in cosmetics, construction, ICT, lifts, textiles, tourism just to mention a few.

4. Governing bodies EU level
What does SBS do?
Represent and support SMEs in standardisation
Technical
Political
So how does SBS help SMEs?
Concretely, SBS operates on 2 levels – on a technical and on a political level
On the technical level, SBS appoints experts in working groups and technical committees at EU level. These are the places where the EU standards are developed. In 2017, SBS supported 55 experts (45 European + 10 international) in 19 different sectors including cosmetics, furniture, wood, textiles, construction, ICT, occupational health and safety, etc.
The European standardisation system is made up of three organisations: CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. The members of these standardisation organisations are national organisations. For instance, the Swedish member of CEN is the Swedish Standards Institute and the CENELEC member is Svensk Elstandard. As the European association representing SMEs in the European Standardisation System, SBS participates in the governing bodies of these organisations: the General Assembly, etc. SBS also has a position of observer in the Committee of Standards, the committee which gathers the representatives of members states.
This is just a quick overview but I would like to stress that standardisation has risen high on the political agenda these last few years, and this will continue in the future.
55 experts
Governing bodies EU level

5. Thank you for your attention
Rue Jacques de Lalaing 4
B-1040 Brussels, Belgium
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