Details
CECIP presents its vision for the European weighing industry by 2030
Brussels, 25 November 2019: CECIP, the European weighing industry association, presented its vision for the European weighing industry by 2030 at a CECIP event in Brussels last week. At the event the main elements of the vision were discussed with representatives from Member States, European Commission, European Parliament and industry.
One of the core topics of the document is digitalisation. “As many parts of society, the weighing industry is also becoming more digital and connected. This results in many opportunities and benefits, however, to reap the full potential of these opportunities it is important the right framework is established,” according to CECIP President Urs Widmer. In its vision CECIP explains that it believes several changes are necessary. Software requirements should become simpler and a risk-based approach on software requirements should be allowed. Moreover, a legislative framework should be defined that does not hamper innovations in fields such as artificial intelligence. By implementing these changes weighing instruments can better enable their users to produce efficiently, increase safety on all the industrial processes where weighing is a key measurement, become more sustainable and improve consumer protection.
CECIP offers cooperation to improve market surveillance
Another important aspect of improving consumer protection in all commercial transactions is adequate market surveillance. CECIP presented today that it believes it is essential to have effective market surveillance to ensure consumer protection and fair competition. To improve compliance CECIP offers to cooperate with authorities to strengthen market surveillance within the EU and promote compliance as encouraged by new EU legislation[1]. CECIP is convinced this is beneficial for consumers, authorities and industry.
Harmonise reverification requirements
European harmonisation of reverification requirements for weighing instruments is another priority for CECIP. CECIP Board member and ESPERA WERKE managing partner Marcus Korthäuer presented the CECIP view during the event: “The European Single Market is bringing major benefits to the industry when it comes to placing instruments on the market. It is time for the next step by harmonising the requirements for services in the weighing industry as well.”
This position is backed by data from a survey carried out by CECIP earlier this year. The survey showed that although an estimated 64% of the SMEs in the weighing industry carry out services abroad such as repairing and installing instruments only 18% carries out legal reverifications. The most important trade barriers identified are differences in national requirements and the additional burden for obtaining authorisations in each country. Additionally, for the companies carrying out the reverifications despite the barriers these costs over 6 million euro per year due to extra administration and man hours. This means that the fragmented requirements create significant barriers to trade and costs the European weighing industry millions of euro per year.
Facilitate global trade
Making it easier to trade weighing instruments and provide services abroad is not only applicable for intra-EU trade. The weighing instrument industry is a global industry and European weighing instruments are sold all over Europe. Therefore, CECIP called at the event for increasing the business opportunities and reducing the trade challenges via trade agreements and cooperation via OIML. As European industry association CECIP will also strengthen the cooperation with industry associations in US, China and Japan.
The full CECIP Vision 2030 is available here.
