UK bodies could be locked out of negotiations to set European standards for areas like artificial intelligence under new EU legislation, according to a press release published by the European Scrutiny Committee on Tuesday.
In 2022, the EU amended their Strategisation Regulation, which will now reduce the formal voting rights of non-EU stakeholders, including from the UK, to “avoid any undue influence of actors from outside the EU and EEA in the decision-making processes during the development of standards for key areas.”
It added that the European system “will remain open, transparent, inclusive and impartial.”
This could have long-term consequences for the UK’s ability to negotiate standards on areas of particular strategic interest, like artificial intelligence, hydrogen, and cyber security, according to the European Scrutiny Committee.
The UK government’s ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ policy paper published in July 2021 wrote that setting international standards on certain future technologies would help the country “exert soft power and help project UK interests on a global stage.”
On Monday, the UK government announced they would be funding £100 million in initial start-up funding for a task force that will develop the safe and reliable use of artificial intelligence foundation models to “ensure the UK is globally competitive in this strategic technology.”
The Committee added that, since many standards produced by European bodies continue to apply directly to goods in Northern Ireland, it is “important for the UK to continue to play a full role in developing European standards.”
European Scrutiny Committee Chairman Sir William Cash wrote to Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business and Trade, MP Kevin Hollinrake, for more information on the impact of the new legislation on British standards bodies.
The amendment to the EU Standardisation Regulation will come into effect on 9 July.
(Sofia Stuart Leeson | EURACTIV.com)
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