Packaging and environment: replacing EN’s by the new ISO’s?

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During the CEN/TC261/SC4 meeting in February 2013 the new ISO standards for packaging and environment were discussed in relation to the CEN standards on packaging and environment. DG environment is open to consider the proposal of adoption of ISO standards as EN ISO standards, meaning they will replace the existing CEN standards. In the first comparative analysis it was concluded that from a technical point of view the ISO standards could be considered as equivalent (even if some questions rose during the discussion). The second step is to check the equivalence of the ISO standards from a political point of view with the European Commission. The question of conformity assessment procedure to the Essentials requirements of the packaging directive via these standards has to be discussed with the European Commission in regards to the potential revision of the Directive.