Teisinis kokybės reglamentavimas Europos Sąjungoje ir Lietuvoje

Abstract

Legislative regulation of quality of product and services is very important for economy of every country for removing technical barriers to trade, protecting the health and safety of consumers. In order to speed up this process, in 1985 the Council of Ministers agreed a resolution on the „New Approach to technical harmonization and standards“. In contrast with the detailed, product-based Directives of the old style, New Approach Directives are limited to fixing essential requirements on general issues such as safety, health and environment. The effective operation of all the Directives, but particularly those of the New Approach, depends on existence of an infrastructure of bodies, rules and relationships typical of market economy. Without these infrastructures, which are particularly concerned with regulatory enforcement, market surveillance, standardization and conformity assessment, the Directives would not achieve their goals. Standardization provides a link between the regulator, the product and the European market. Policies relating to conformity assessment in the EU have as a cornerstone the Commission Communication to the Council submitted on 15 June 1989, „A Global Approach to certification and testing – quality measures for industrial products“ and the Council Decision of 22 July 1993 concerning the modules for the various phases of the conformity assessment procedures and rules for the affixing and use of the CE conformity marking are intended to be used in technical harmonization Directives (93/465/EEC). The documents mentioned above should guide the authorities of the Lithuania in the conformity assessment area. It is necessary to develop of conformity assessment bodies that are competent, in terms of experience, human resources, facilities and organization. Legislative alignment involving also technical harmonization is a complex process where Lithuania changes it former market surveillance system to a new system, whose objective is to suppress in an effective manner barriers to trade and allow free movement of products within the Union.
Lithuania solved the problems associated with the alignment of legislation to EU requirements consecutively. In 1996 the Government of Lithuania approved National program for quality. The program was oriented to speed the process of integration to EU economical area and to achieve these objectives:
- To adopt appropriate Lithuanian legislation with requirements of EU Directives.
- To adopt European harmonized standards as Lithuanian National standards that facilitate the implementation of the New Approach Directives.
- To approximate Lithuanian market surveillance system with EU market surveillance system.
The most of these objectives was successfully solved. National accreditation body in September of 1997 presented application to the European Cooperation for Accreditation. Positive decision for associated member of this organization was given in 23-06-1998. Standardization body of Lithuania till beginning of 2002 year adopted 2160 harmonized European standards as Lithuanian National standards. It offers the possibilities for various sectors of economy of Lithuania to approximate Lithuanian technical regulations with requirements of EU New Approach Directives. At present time Lithuanian technical legislation is approximated with 19 New Approach Directives.