# **3.4 GENERAL FEATURES OF AN RTA STANDARD AND CONFORMITY ASSESSMENT UPGRADING AND HARMONIZATION PROCESS.**

This section presents the general features of a regional upgrading and harmonization process of standards and conformity assessment procedures. These features are derived from the recent experience of the most advanced RTAs in terms of the speed of their standard upgrading and harmonizing - EU, Mercosur, Andean Community, and ASEAN.

# **The harmonization of standards translates into greater market access and allows for greater interoperability** (see Box 3).

## **Box 3: Harmonization of standards leads to greater trade: examples in Mercosur and the Andean Community.**

**Mercosur:** Dairy intra-regional exports grew at an annual growth rate of 13.9% from 1990 to 2000 (COMTRADE data).  This growth is partially explained by the reductions resulting from the harmonization of technical regulations. The harmonization of voluntary standards in the automotive industry increased the interoperability of automotive parts and increased intra-regional trade in cars and trucks.  With regard to SPS standards, the harmonization of cosmetic standards and of food colorants led to lower barriers and greater intra-regional trade in these products.

**Andean Community:** The decision 491 harmonized technical regulations for the weight of trucks.  This was translated into a fall in the number of products blocked at customs.  The harmonization of a voluntary standard on white sugar increased trade in white sugar, as it eliminated the blocking of imports on the basis of different sugar definitions.

Mercosur and the Andean Community have also harmonized their member countries’ system of control and reporting of diseases and have harmonized their vaccination programs, limiting the impact of health shocks on trade.

**The selected approach to harmonization is strongly influenced by the regulatory culture of the member countries and the strength of their institutions.** Countries in Mercosur and in the Andean Community have governments with a strong regulatory culture and paternalistic attitude.  In Mercosur and the Andean Community national (regional) technical regulations compete with national (regional) voluntary standards by setting detailed product and process specifications, unlike in the EU.  As a result, changes in technology make it necessary to change both technical regulations and voluntary standards, which leads to a less dynamic standard system than in the EU – where in most cases it is only voluntary standards that need to be changed.

**RTAs follow different criteria of standard harmonization** . The new EU approach considers members’ technical regulations as equivalent so long as a minimum set of criteria are satisfied.  Only where the principle of equivalence is not possible due to the complexity of the product’s regulation, the EU applies standards harmonization. Mercosur and the Andean Community apply a more ambitious harmonization process. They develop regional technical regulations and regional voluntary standards with the expectation that members will replace them for their old technical regulations and voluntary standards, respectively.  As has already been mentioned, ASEAN countries set their regional standard equal to the international standard.

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