Dialogue Johan Englund and Tore N Thomassen_20120301

Dialogue Johan Englund, Nordic Innovation, and Tore Nyvold Thomassen, EFTA, 1 March 2012 – settingthe scene for the workshop on certification of services in Brussels.Tore: Good morning Johan! How are you today?Johan: Thank you, Tore, I am fine, and eager to see where this workshop will bring us. How areyou today, Tore?Tore: I am slightly nervous. I think this is the very first time a workshop is organised, at least atEuropean level, about certification of services based on standards. Furthermore, we do thiswithin a context where we try to prevent, rather than to repair.It is interesting to observe that it is much easier to attract attention to repairing a problem, than topreventing a potential problem. This being said, I am happy that we have managed to fill the roomtoday with what must be very wise people as they are here.By the way, you must really be sceptical to certification in Nordic Innovation? You have carriedout no less than three studies on certification of services!!!!Johan: Sceptical. Oh no, not at all. We think that certification has an important role to play as atool for creating the Single Market in services. It just has to be used in the right way. But thatwe will discuss later on today.And remember, EFTA started it all some years ago, with its study on certification and marking inEurope. And that was a study that really described a confused certification market for goods inEurope.Tore: That is true. For a buyer of a product it can be difficult to understand the meaning of aspecific certification mark and how they relate to each other.But what is certification to you?Johan: For me, the positive side of certification is about creating trust, between a company andits potential clients. Certification might also help the customer in distinguishing the good guysfrom the bad guys. It is also about increasing the quality of products and services. And byincreasing trust and quality, you may increase cross border trade.For a Swedish company who are trying to enter the German market, a certification mark may forexample compensate for a less known brand.Furthermore, standards are in my view a good basis for certification, as standards are developedin an open and consensus based environment. Would you like to add something?Tore: Yes, but maybe from a more formal perspective, to avoid any misunderstandings in thediscussions we will have todayIn discussions I have been involved in, conformity assessment is often used instead ofcertification. I would like to remind you of that conformity assessment consist of several activities:that is testing, measuring, inspection and certification.Certification is therefore only one out of several conformity assessments activities. In addition youmay have for example self certification or third party certification.Self certification should be self-explaining. Third party certification is the issuing by a thirdparty, hopefully a certification body, of a certificate of conformity with standards and/or rules.Certification may, or may not, lead to the affixing of a mark.So, Johan, you do not have a problem with certification as such? 1

Dialogue Johan Englund, Nordic Innovation, and Tore Nyvold Thomassen, EFTA, 1 March 2012 – settingthe scene for the workshop on certification of services in Brussels.Johan: No, but despite the positive aspects of certification I just mentioned, there are also, in asingle market perspective, some negative effects of certification that may be observed: This iswhen it has to be repeated for the same product or service in every new market a manufactureror a service provider entersThis can make products more expensive to consumers. And, it can even be prohibitive to trade, inparticular for SMEs.Furthermore, to add another issue which is worth mentioning: In our first Nordic innovation studywe were made aware of more than 50 environmental certification schemes? Are so many marksonly for environmental purposes really necessary?Well, I am sure that we on these issues will hear the voice of consumers, service providers andcertifiers today.Tore:I share your concerns, but there is something which I have never understood. If you are right,trade may be hampered and consumers may have to pay more due to proliferation of schemes.Why do neither trade unions nor consumer’s organisations cry out and promote more crossborder recognition of certification?And furthermore, why have only a few industry sectors organised themselves with a Pan-European solution for certification. We will hear some examples today from CEN. Why is theexemption, not the rule? And even if an industry sector can organise itself, trade unions are ingeneral very passive when it comes to certification.Maybe it is because the views of their members differ highly?Johan:Well, I think there may be several explanations. It seems also that the industry associations aremore focused on promoting their members activities in the domestic market. A local certificationmark may be a good tool to strengthen their members’ position locally and perhaps also to fightback foreign competition.A finding in our second study is that companies do not regard certification as an important tool inan international expansion strategy. I hope we will learn more about these issues today. Inparticular I think that the view of SME organisations and trade unions are important.Tore: So, we are left with a lot of questions and we hope we will have a better understanding of"facts" after this workshop. Neither Nordic Innovation nor EFTA is sceptical to certification, and ascertification bodies have to be localised somewhere, the certification activities will happen atnational level.However, it is the lack of cross border recognition that we are concerned about. Can things beorganised in a better way?Johan: Yes, this is one of the crucial questions: As we have some certification bodies in theroom, we hope that their experience will help us to understand what is happening at national levelin the market of certification of services, and what their view is on making certification moreEuropean.However, I sometimes fear that the discussion we raise may be regarded as a threat to theirbusiness. Another crucial question is therefore: Is it possible to create a win win situation: Forthe business of the certification bodies and for the Single Market? Look for example at theKeymark. 2

Dialogue Johan Englund, Nordic Innovation, and Tore Nyvold Thomassen, EFTA, 1 March 2012 – settingthe scene for the workshop on certification of services in Brussels.Why, Tore, is it important to discuss certification of services today?Tore: Because of the services directive and more precisely Article 26 of that Directive. It is muchvaguer on certification than we are used to with regard to conformity assessment under the NewApproach. And, there is no CE-marking for services. This means that the development may go inall directions. Certification of services may continue to develop purely at national level, or panEuropean solutions or more cross border mutual recognition may appear?Johan: But, we raise this issue as representatives of public authorities, Should public authorities,including the European Commission, determine the need for certification in e.g. a servicessector?Tore: You are right, there are discussions we need to have, some of them hopefully to day?These discussion should include the role European standards may play if we want to promotecross border recognition of certification. But, can we promote standards because we want them tobe used for certification? There may be some political difficulties here.Johan: Let me return to the Services directive:Whatever the development will be with regard to trade in services in general, and with regard tostandardisation and certification of services in particular, I think we both agree to that there is awindow of opportunity to discuss these issues today.I think this window of opportunity will become clearer to the workshop when Technopolis haspresented its findings in the new study.Tore: I agree, and I would like to add: Can we afford at policy level to postpone this discussionwe have invited to today? Lets see what we think at the end of the day.Johan: We count on everyones active participation. Good ideas are welcomed. Disagreementmay trigger better ideas.We hope it will be a workshop in the real meaning of the word. And of course, we also hope thatthe lunch will be good, in spite of that we did not have it certified.Thank you for your attention! 3

Dialogue Johan Englund and Tore N Thomassen_20120301

by Nordic Innovation on Mar 08, 2012

Accessibility

Categories

Upload Details

Usage Rights

Statistics

Dialogue Johan Englund and Tore N Thomassen_20120301 Document Transcript