CENELEC’s core business is the development of standards that meet the needs of the market. Standardization is performed in a ‘bottom-up’ approach, thereby ensuring the market relevance of the resulting deliverables.
That CENELEC work is governed by the Technical Board (BT), which monitors and steers all of the standardization activities and has full responsibility for the timely execution of CENELEC’s work programme. The preparation of the standards belongs to the remit of some 100 technical bodies (Technical Committees, Subcommittees and BT Task Forces) that each have their own field of operation (scope) within which a work programme of identified standards is developed and executed. Technical bodies work on the basis of national participation by the CENELEC Members, where delegates represent their respective national point of view. This principle allows the technical bodies to take balanced decisions that reflect a wide consensus. The real standards development, though, is undertaken by working groups (WGs) where experts, appointed by the CENELEC Members but speaking in a personal capacity, come together and develop a draft that will become the future standard. This reflects an embedded principle of ‘direct participation’ in the standardization activities.
Work is also performed by CENELEC together with its sister organizations CEN and ETSI. The ways and means of cooperation are laid down in the Internal Regulations Part 2 and, where ETSI is involved, it follows the principles of the CEN-CENELEC-ETSI Basic Cooperation Agreement and the associated Modes of Cooperation.