European Committee for Standardization

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CEN, the European Committee for Standardization or Comité Européen de Normalisation, is a private non-profit organization whose mission is to foster the European economy in global trading, the welfare of European citizens and the environment by providing an efficient infrastructure to interested parties for the development, maintenance and distribution of coherent sets of standards and specifications.

CEN was founded in 1961. Its twenty nine national members work together to develop voluntary european standards (ENs) in various sectors to build a European internal market for goods and services and to position Europe in the global economy. More than 60.000 technical experts as well as business federations, consumer and other societal interest organizations are involved in the CEN network that reaches over 460 million people. CEN is the officially recognized standardization representative for sectors other than electrotechnical (CENELEC) and telecommunications (ETSI).

The standardization bodies of the twenty nine national members represent the twenty five member states of the European Union, three countries of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and countries who are likely to join the EU or EFTA in the future. CEN is contributing to the objectives of the European Union and European Economic Area with voluntary technical standards (EN standards) which promote free trade, the safety of workers and consumers, interoperability of networks, environmental protection, exploitation of research and development programmes, and public procurement.