Origins of CE Marking
By indicating "conformité européenne" to regional standards for health and safety, the ubiquitous emblem of the CE mark effectively determines which goods in key product categories can be legally sold within the European Economic Area, the trading bloc that includes both the European Union (EU) and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). As such, it is at the center of relationships between business and governance in Europe and a powerful symbol of Europe's place in the global economy. But how, when, and why was it developed? Was it intended to regulate or support regional trade? How did companies based inside and outside of Europe's prized consumer market respond? And what do the origins of the mark tell us about the political economy of the Single European Market in the past and in the present?
In a recent article published in the Business History Review, I drew on materials from the Historical Archives of the European Union to uncover the origins of the CE marking system of assessing and certifying conformity to European standards that includes affixing the CE mark. Documents from the European Commission and European Parliament reveal that it was during efforts to relaunch regional market integration in the 1980s through a "new approach" to standardization that the CE marking process was first developed. The Commission saw standards as a tool to liberalize markets and shape the business environment of the region. As it began to develop directives for product standards, however, the Commission quickly realized that its standardization program would need urgent reform if the European Community (EC) was to complete a Single Market by its 1992 deadline. It proposed a streamlined, modular "global approach" and, through the European Parliament's Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs and Industrial Policy, sought the input of the business groups it hoped would embrace the CE marking process.
In 1990, Business associations with significant interests in European markets like UNICE and the EC Committee of the American Chamber of Commerce were asked to comment on the modules, assessment scheme, and CE mark criteria of the Commission's Global Approach. Their responses reveal broad business preferences not for less regulation and oversight, but rather for even greater clarity on the CE marking process, for equitable access to product testing and certification for companies based outside the EC, and for stronger enforcement of CE mark violators. Importantly, though, small firms and state-owned enterprises feared the costs of conformity assessment and the loss of preferential state regulation. Archival documents also show that these exchanges between business associations and European institutions were not a case of "regulatory capture;" the Council initially ignored the recommendations of the groups consulted. When it did make a decision on CE marking on the eve of the Maastricht Treaty's signing in 1991, the European Council took a rather protectionist approach by restricting assessment and certification access in third countries, thereby favoring European firms over those importing goods to the EC from places like Japan and the United States.
The origins of the CE mark help us understand the ways policymakers and companies alike were thinking about the Single European Market and its place in the global economy during the crucial years of the 1992 Program. Policymakers wanted to create a liberal internal market with some external protections, and business groups supported conformity assessment and certification as a means of leveling the playing field and opening access to new markets in the region. That the EFTA readily accepted the EU's system of standardization and use of the CE mark positions this history to shed new light on the broader dynamics of European political economy.