The Role of Standardization Bodies in the Harmonization of Analytical Methods
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The standardization process is conducted within technical committees, sub-committees, and working groups, which are settled per area of expertise. Each one is under the responsibility of a chair and a secretariat of the country that takes the lead. The secretariat is usually undertaken by the standardization body of the country taking the lead, at least for the technical committees and sub-committees. The standardization body with the secretariat manages the whole standardization process (circulation of documents, preparation and follow-up of meetings, editorial drafting of standards, etc.). The national ISO members and international organizations in liaison choose membership in a given committee/sub-committee, depending on their interest and willingness to participate in the standardization field considered. The technical development of standards is therefore not centralized in Geneva. The ISO Standards can optionally be adopted as national standards by ISO members. II.B.2. CEN – European Committee for Standardization CEN was set up more recently than ISO, in 1961. The central structure of CEN, called CEN Management Centre, is located in Brussels, and has a role similar to the ISO Central Secretariat. CEN members are the national standardization bodies of Europe at large: 30 countries are full members and six are associated members. CEN therefore corresponds more to a geographical Europe, and not only to the European Union. CEN has a privileged link with the European Commission, which can make specific requests for standardization. CEN standardization functions in a similar way to ISO. The main difference is that CEN standards must be taken over and included in the collection of national standards of CEN Members, and that conflicting national standards along the same scope must be withdrawn. This ensures a higher degree of harmonization at the European level, made possible by the regional scale involved. Meanwhile, the use of these standards remains voluntary, except when cited in European regulatory texts.
II.C. Standardization structures in food microbiology Most of the standardization works in food microbiology are conducted by two structures, one at the ISO level and the other at the CEN level: ISO/TC 34/SC 9: Sub-Committee 9 ‘Microbiology’ of Technical Committee 34 ‘Food products’ of ISO (in short, SC 9) CEN/TC 275/WG 6: Working Group 6 ‘Microbial contaminants’ of Technical Committee 275 ‘Food analysis – Horizontal methods’ of CEN (in short, WG 6).