One of the goals of the European Economic Community was to remove technical trade barriers. Standardized measures ensure that products and services meet the testing, safety, certification an legal requirements of all member countries.
Standardization also brings down artificial barriers to trade.
The standards applicable in the quality area are the ISO 9000 series of standards. The United States is represented by the American National Standards Institute. The United States was part of the development process that established the ISO 9000 series of quality system requirements. In fact, the ISO 9000 Series is the American National Standard for Quality Assurance in Design, Development, Production, Installation and Servicing. The 9000 series is a set of individual, but related, quality management and assurance standards.