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CEN has taken a decision similar to that taken by CENELEC for electrical engineering. Its “Workshop Agreements” (CWAs), which are often drawn up at short notice to meet the needs of rapidly developing sectors, will no longer be able to cover occupational health and safety (OHS). This position is supported in particular by INRS and EUROGIP in France.
Although CWAs are drawn up under the responsibility of recognised standardisation bodies, they are not subject to the same rigorous rules as official standards and therefore do not have the same value as the latter. In particular, they
- do not require the consensus of all stakeholders;
- do not offer the necessary guarantees of transparency with regard to public scrutiny;
- leave the door open to outside influences, particularly from non-European countries, which can impose their interests on the European market.
In view of the various problems associated with the development and use of these Workshop Agreements, EUROGIP and INRS – but also CIOP-PIB (Poland), KAN and DGUV (Germany), FIOH (Finland) and INSST (Spain) – reject their use to deal with OSH aspects. In the joint declaration they signed in December 2023, “they invite the standardisation bodies to establish a clear formal and visual distinction between standards and these deliverables [workshop agreements at national level and “publicly available specifications” at international level] to ensure that users are fully aware that these documents are not standards”.
