European standards, the expectations of the industry and the users

The paper gives an overview of the situation in Europe concerning security standardization, testing and certification and the expectations of the industry and the users. The main problem which is identified is to match the production time of the standards with the innovation speed. Today technology changes so fast that the danger exists that product standards become obsolete when they come out, even though they are excellent. Then modern technologies may be blocked and this would destroy the hope and the expectations of everybody. Speaking of the expectations of the industry and the users, a difference should be made between standards and standardization. Standards are technical specifications on which certain parties have agreed. Standardization is the totality of all activities, procedures and structures needed to produce standards.