Post Brexit - Why are we still permitting CENELEC etc to influence how we govern our own engineering affairs?

Suspect there is still an amount of national leeway where it's needed/wanted - after all we still have rings and reduced c.p.c.s on small circuits that most of the rest of the CENELEC world prohibit and the relatively recent fire resistant cable supports appears to be a UK only idea.

In a world where things are designed once, manufactured in bulk and sold worldwide there's more than a little advantage in having common standards - and many of the standards are so intertwined at a technical level there's a significant risk of creating a can of worms if you start trying to tweak one or two in isolation to any great significance. If you think BSs are expensive now, just imagine what they'd cost if BSI had to generate all their contents from scratch rather than being able to copy & paste 80% of it. Also there must be some advantage to the UK of being in CENELEC and having at least one vote on what happens, rather than relinquishing all control and then having possibly even less UK friendly versions imposed on us de-facto by market forces anyway.

   - Andy.

You might as well ask why the UK is still in IEC and ITU. And why the UK implemented the NIS Directive.

The rail automation regs are CENELEC. As far as I know, the UK only has rail connections to members of the EU. It would be a bit silly not to have a UK voice on ERTMS. Even sillier to make international passengers get off in Dover and get on to other trains for the onward journey in GB because the electronics don't match. The situation is bad enough with multiple power systems; it would become next to impossible if controls went the same way. Besides, who is going to build control systems for the British rail market alone?

"How is it that we allow the tail to wag the dog?"

Probably easier that way when you note the sizes of the tail and dog.

I am more concerned about the prospect of rubber stamping rather than questioning the need. Some alignment makes sense, some does not, especially if it brings extra costs but no tangible benefit.

I am more concerned about the prospect of rubber stamping rather than questioning the need.

As I understand it, the UK isn't just rubber stamping things that arrive out of the blue - we have representation at CENELEC and IEC levels so (in principle at least) had just as much say in what was originally written as anyone else.

    - Andy.

Andy, we were but one of 27 in the eu, and with QMV we stood no chance of getting things we wanted done - that's one of the reasons why we left. Does this mirror across to CENELEC too? It concerns me that we tend to opt for the easiest but not necessarily the best options and just adopt and worst still 'Gold Plate' existing stuff in order to 'harmonize' without thinking things through, especially the extra costs to the end user of doing so. For example, where did the notion for afdds come from? EU manufacturers perchance?

we were but one of 27 in the eu

That's democracy I'm afraid (or at least one version of it). The days of sending a gun boat in to impose one particular will are long gone (well, hopefully). It's similarly difficult with any committee - often it's those with the best technical grasp of the issues are the ones least blessed with the 'gift of the gab' to be able to persude others of their viewpoint, but that's just life. I suspect it's the same wherever you go - whether it's a UK committee or an EU one, there will be as many different opinions as there are individuals. I've never come across a single coherent "UK mindset" - a UK committee will likely to have just as many diverse opinions as an EU, CENELEC or IEC one. For things electrical where the basics are driven by the laws of physics and general scientific understanding, all the problems and potential solutions on offer are likely to be very similar. In terms of social acceptability (e.g. cost vs safety attitudes) there's probably less difference between London and Berlin than there is say between Chelsea and Tower Hamlets. I can certanly understand a feeling of lack of control of one's own destiny, but that's just as apparent at any level outside of your own four walls - whether it be at UN, EU, UK, national, or county level (and plenty of people asking for indendence/devolution/freedom/union at every one of those levels). No man is an island they say, we probably need to learn to live with that, the size of the island as it were is only a matter of scale not of principle.

   - Andy.

BSI are the UK member of CENELEC making a significant contribution to the development of Standards and CENELEC are not the EU but have a rather larger membership. However the important factor is that if we removed ourselves from CENELEC and had different standards for UK and the rest of Europe then our manufacturers would need two production lines, one for domestic products and one for export products. How would this be sensible.

whjohnson said:

It seems that we just adopt, or rather 'harmonize' without question

Not the case, UK national committees do respond to international work, and Harmonized Documents are put out for public comment before adoption (including the harmonized parts of the international documents that go into BS 7671 - HD 60364 series). There is definitely question and comment.

Once the HDs are agreed, though, we do have a specified timescale to adopt them in our national standard (BS 7671 in this case).

I am thinking more of regulations and practises rather than products. We do not need to harmonise the wiring regulations.

By all means continue to spend lots of expensive time discussing standards for light bulbs, but please leave the wiring regulations alone for a decade or so in order that we can regain some semblance of order and clarity.