Europe's New Approach: 20 years of good regulatory practice

摘要

This year marks the 20th anniversary of the introduction of a groundbreaking regulatory technique for the European Union: the "New Approach on technical harmonisation and standards". The concept was launched in the European Council Resolution of 7 May 1985 and was designed to provide fresh impetus to the development of European product legislation. What is usually referred to simply as the New Approach was and is seen as an essential condition for improving the competitiveness of European industry. The New Approach is a method whereby product legislation is restricted to adoption of what are called the "essential" requirements necessary to protect the public goals of human health, safety or the environment. The detailed technical requirements are usually addressed by means of voluntary European standards. The approach means that wide fields of products (or risk) can be covered by one piece of legislation. It is estimated that the trade volume of products covered by only the major sectors falling under the New Approach largely exceeds 1500 billion Euro per year.