The UK has voted to leave the EU and British companies need to be aware of what this means to the glazing market and how the industry will conform to technical standards in the future. This article explains what the Glass & Glazing Federation's technical perspective is at the moment. Firstly, the Construction Products Regulation (CPR) is an EU directive that was enacted into UK law in 2013. Therefore, nothing will change until the government of the day makes changes to replace it and enacts a new law to cover its legal requirements. The GGF doesn't see anything happening on this before 2020, so the recommendation is that companies ensure they continue to CE mark their products if they fall under a harmonised EU norm. Secondly, CEN: the EU Committee for Standardisation - made up of all the national standardisation bodies throughout Europe. CEN is one of three EU Standardisation Organisations that have been officially recognised by the EU and by the EU Free Trade Association as being responsible for developing and defining voluntary standards at EU level. Therefore, all standards are basically voluntary, and only become mandatory under EU legislation when the part containing the Annex ZA is cited in the Official Journal. As long as the CPR remains in the UK's national legislation, compliance with the harmonised EU Norms will remain a fact of life. Effectively, with respect to standardisation and compliance with the CPR, nothing has changed yet and any likely changes are several years away.
