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In early October, new rules governing the development of standards came into force for the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the European standardisation bodies, namely the European Committee for Standardisation (CEN) and the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC).
At ISO, the 2026 edition of the ISO/IEC Directives – Part 1, published on 1 July 2026, came into force on 5 October. In agreement with ISO and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), this edition introduces around twenty significant changes concerning, in particular, the organisation of work, project development timelines and the monitoring of standards.
At CEN-CENELEC, the first set of changes has been in force since 6 October. It aims to publish European standards more quickly, without reducing the time experts spend drafting them and whilst maintaining quality and the pursuit of consensus. It mainly concerns voting and translations:
- the vote on a new draft is reduced from 8 to 4 weeks, as is the formal vote;
- translation into French and German now takes place in parallel with the consultation stages, and the enquiry, like the formal vote, can be launched without these versions.
A second phase is planned for the first quarter of 2027, the date of which is yet to be confirmed. This two-stage roll-out allows the technical committees time to adapt and gives the CEN-CENELEC Management Centre (CCMC) time to develop the necessary IT tools.
It should be noted that at CEN-CENELEC, these changes could lead to more frequent launches of public enquiries in English only and reinforce the importance of the positions and comments made at this stage. Indeed, from the first quarter of 2027, a positive enquiry could lead directly to the publication of the standard, without a formal vote.
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