The findings of our industry snapshots point to a pressing need for the EU and its individual Member States, including the Netherlands, to invest far more time and (political) capital in standardisation. Standardisation must be integrated in industrial, economic security and foreign policies – from engagement with multilateral institutions to projects in the context of Global Gateway.[66] Building on the three core pillars of action of the 2023 EU Economic Security Strategy,[67] this section provides a comprehensive overview of policy recommendations along five lines of action: (1) Programming; (2) Promoting; (3) Protecting; (4) Partnering; and (5) Process.
5.1 Programming: Strategising Standardisation
On programming, the Netherlands and Europe can learn two lessons from China’s strategy on standardisation. First, standardisation should be considered part of an overarching industrial and technology policy, regarded as one of its strategic spearheads and part of its overarching technology vision. Second, orchestrating the private sector is a powerful way to leverage standardisation as a mechanism for asserting technological dominance, thereby establishing a strong position to shape the development and direction of standards across multiple arenas.
To the first point, China’s acknowledgement of standardisation’s importance contrasts with the still-evolving role of standardisation in the EU’s agenda. While institutional attention for standardisation in Europe has increased significantly since the adoption of the 2022 European Standardisation Strategy – most notably through the creation of the High-Level Forum on European Standardisation, chaired by successive European Commissioners – the integration of standardisation into Europe’s broader industrial and technological strategy and its implementation remains incomplete. The forum, which brings together 55 members including EU and European Economic Area (EEA) countries, European SDOs such as CEN and CENELEC, industry, academia and civil society, has produced several deliverables through its sectoral workstreams. However, despite its mandate to convene twice annually, no meeting took place in 2024, raising concerns about continuity and political follow-through.
Relying on a fragmented approach to technical standardisation is increasingly untenable, but in the context of escalating geopolitical fragmentation, there is a real risk that standardisation falls behind other, short-term priorities. Rather, standardisation should be embedded in a broader industrial strategy that nurtures native innovation ecosystems and reduces long-term vulnerabilities. Without this, Europe risks falling behind in defining the rules for technologies of the future.
Second, regarding orchestration, standardisation efforts involve a wide range of stakeholders, particularly from the private sector. States can support and guide these efforts by deploying policy tools such as public procurement, targeted funding, and education and training initiatives. To this end, the Netherlands and the EU must take a more proactive and leading role in standardisation. Recognising the long-term effects of standardisation is the first step in doing so. The second step is to define objectives and translate them into goals that can be achieved through a coordinated approach with societal actors – learning from China’s orchestration strategy. Greater coordination among the private sector and industry, and the academic and research communities – both within the Netherlands and in Europe – is a necessary condition for a successful industrial policy that places standardisation as one of its core elements.
5.2 Promoting: Aligning Industrial Priorities and Global Standards’ Leadership Ambitions
Policies aimed at strengthening Dutch and European influence in technical standardisation bodies should be closely linked to the EU’s broader knowledge strategy. This includes leveraging Research, Development and Innovation (R&D&I) ecosystems, which form the foundation of the EU bloc’s long-term competitiveness. This means developing an agenda that focuses on policies to foster research and innovation, intellectual property (IP) and patents development. Crucially, these efforts must have commercialisation and the development of customer-facing applications as their ultimate goals, so that the EU can reap the social and economic benefits of the research done within its borders. Inability to bridge the gap from research to commercialisation and entrepreneurship remains a major challenge in the EU.
However, the Netherlands and the EU cannot realistically aim to compete on all fronts, as that would not be economically viable and would be unlikely to yield positive results. Industrial policy comes at a cost, meaning that difficult policy decisions have to be made: deciding where to focus current and future investments is one such decision. For example, investing in sectors where China already holds a significant lead, such as solar panels, is unlikely to prove worthwhile. The European Commission and EU Member States like the Netherlands would benefit from mapping the areas where they hold a future-ready position and designing appropriate standardisation mechanisms and targeted resource allocation strategies that best optimise efforts in those areas. The goal ought not to be picking winners, but rather avoiding overinvesting in sectors or industries where Europe is already behind and/or which are not of strategic importance. Trying to compete with the US and China in technologies where these countries are already dominant is unlikely to be a winning strategy.
Moreover, in line with recent initiatives such as the European Semiconductor Coalition,[68] building coalitions of the willing and explicitly incorporating standardisation as one of the pillars of EU-wide initiatives related to, for example, emerging technologies may prove beneficial. This would help in making standardisation a political theme in forums where the theme is most often omitted. To raise the profile and importance of standardisation further, EU Member States could consider establishing dedicated national representatives or envoys (ambassador-like roles) tasked with leading and coordinating negotiations on standards, mobilising national multistakeholder communities and strategising their participation in international technical standards-setting. A complementary approach would be to reinforce and institutionalise strategic standardisation dialogue within the EU. While the High-Level Forum on European Standardisation provides a valuable platform, this dialogue could be strengthened by formalising annual meetings among all – or a coalition of willing – EU Member States and the European Commission to assess jointly key priorities, set shared objectives and align public-sector perspectives on international technical standardisation.
Finally, tying Promoting to Programming, Europe must realise that the lead-time for professionals to build experience on standardisation, as well as on R&D and SEPs, and to bear (commercial) fruit is long. Impactful engagement requires sustained, long-term investment aligned with broader industrial and strategic goals. This means making adequate resources and dedicated funding streams available at both national and EU levels to support expertise development, participation in standardisation bodies and the commercialisation of strategic technologies.
5.3 Protecting: Defending Strategic Technologies, Detecting Power Shifts
Protecting the Dutch and EU’s position in international standardisation requires action on several fronts. The first is to prevent technology transfers according to two criteria: where there is dual-use potential; and in critical areas where Europe wants to keep its technology superiority. This element connects well with the outbound investment screening plans that the European Commission is currently developing.[69]
Moreover, Europe would benefit from working on data analytics-driven intelligence and digital tools to understand and assess the distribution of power on standardisation. Information regarding participation in international standardisation forums is scattered across multiple sources and difficult to assemble. A communications system or monitoring platform for trends and developments in standardisation that are made by China – and others – on key technologies would help European stakeholders interested in standardisation to organise themselves better and align their engagement strategies. Proper understanding of how the Chinese orchestration model for standardisation works in practice is lacking, and funded research on this area could bring about insights and better information on China’s standardisation system. The Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Critical Technology Tracker, which monitors countries’ research performance and potential technology capabilities, could serve as inspiration for a framework to monitor developments and technology trends on standardisation.[70]
Furthermore, an in-depth discussion on sanctions, bans or export controls could also be carried out. The fine balance between protecting our industries and knowledge spill-over effects and making sure that Europe is not actually stimulating Chinese efforts to further and more quickly develop native capabilities – and thereby catch-up – is worth a thorough analysis. Conducting such an analysis could help Europe to define measures to avoid making our ecosystems dispensable for China – be they EV chips or lithography equipment. The progress made by China in AI and semiconductors over the past two years, despite export controls by the US, the Netherlands and Japan, provides a case study to assess and learn about this matter. Other, older chips, although less advanced in design, are strategically indispensable across critical sectors – from automotive and healthcare to aerospace and defence. The challenge that Europe faces not only stems from global overcapacity, as often portrayed, but also from a lack of competitive European production. This has concrete implications for policy. Rather than focusing primarily on protectionist tools such as sanctions or export controls – which may have a limited effect or unintended consequences – the EU should prioritise ‘promote’ and ‘partner’ strategies, as described in the previous and the following sections. The EU should nonetheless adopt proactive strategies to maintain and strengthen its technological edge where it still holds competitive advantages.
These technological advancements are closely linked to standardisation efforts, as Chinese companies like SMIC and BYD increasingly participate in international technical committees related to automotive as well as semiconductor standards. Monitoring their progress also means monitoring how they contribute to and influence global standards.
This challenge is compounded by the asymmetry in how standardisation access is structured. While Chinese companies can participate in EU Member States’ NSBs and European SDOs – often without significant barriers – foreign companies face more restricted access to China’s standards-setting system. Participation in China’s domestic standardisation processes requires local registration and formal partnerships with government-affiliated entities, limiting meaningful foreign input – or, as in the case of CACA, it is simply not allowed. Assessing this imbalance is crucial for shaping EU policy on whether and how principles of reciprocity should be integrated into European standardisation governance.
5.4 Partnering: Mobilising Local Action and European Alignment to Achieve Global Impact
The theme of partnering is of particular interest for the EU and ties well with promoting and protecting, as discussed above. Only when EU Member States partner among themselves and cooperate with others such as Japan, South Korea, the UK or India can Europe ensure leadership in the global standardisation arena. Such collaboration helps to bridge knowledge gaps, align technical priorities and consolidate voting power in international standards bodies, which often operate on consensus or weighted participation systems.
It remains essential for European stakeholders to align informally around shared priorities in voting rounds, which are often unpredictable and labour-intensive. Developing a mutual agenda – grounded in transparent coordination, timely information exchange and early engagement – can help to ensure that European interests are effectively represented, without breaching the principles of openness and neutrality that underpin international standardisation.
Electric vehicles offer a particularly illustrative example of the opportunities and challenges involved in international technology partnerships. In fact, European automotive chip suppliers continue to pursue technology partnerships with Chinese companies. However, also from a self-protection point of view, there is a growing need to reassess cooperation with Chinese companies like Huawei and BYD, since they are also producing EV chips, which may lead to increased competitive pressure on European suppliers, potential IP leakage and long-term dependency risks in a strategically critical technology domain. In parallel, the EU can work on exerting its influence by strengthening interactions with relevant Chinese standardisation organisations, ensuring that it partakes in the development of standards and thereby minimises future technical differences. This implies encouraging China’s entanglement by working on the development of EV chip standards with CATARC to avoid diverging standards. Autonomy and strategic entanglement must be properly balanced, and this balance will differ per technology area and depend on the level of European ambition in each area.
5.5 Process: Scanning Opportunities, Selecting Priorities and Scaling What Works
There is ample opportunity to improve the processes of standardisation bodies. Standardisation is a complex process that requires adhering to several formal procedures, while also relying on informal coordination and negotiations – both during and outside of meetings.
Process and outcome documents related to standardisation present two main challenges. On the one hand, the sheer volume and complexity of documentation – especially within Technical Committees – make it difficult for practitioners to navigate the process and keep track of developments. On the other hand, there is a significant transparency gap: access to many documents remains restricted to participating members (P-members), with limited visibility for the broader public and even for some stakeholder groups.
For instance, in ISO/TC 197 on Hydrogen Technologies, only P-members such as the Netherlands have access to the committee’s materials, while the public remains excluded. Although national committees are expected to consult their constituencies, in practice this input channel is often limited. Conversely, when a country is not a P-member – as in the case of the Netherlands and ISO/TC 351 on Contact Centres – it lacks access to the documents altogether, thus complicating inclusive participation. Ensuring more transparency regarding participation in standardisation meetings, as well as easier access to public archives on the topic, are needed to allow for greater accountability and openness. All documentation on standards should be made more accessible and – every time it is feasible and acceptable – publicly available in machine-readable format by default, to ensure that it can be analysed by external experts. Additionally, the names of participants and institutions involved in standard-setting processes should be made public, in order to enhance transparency and democratic legitimacy. These are matters that EU Member States can promote within formal SDOs.
Early documentation of procedures and methods in technical standards can provide companies or governments with a first-mover advantage by shaping the direction of the standard before others have the chance to contribute. This dynamic can place latecomers – often from countries or organisations with less-developed standardisation infrastructures – at a disadvantage, as their ability to influence or adapt to the standard is diminished. In the ISO, for example, once standards on a certain area are documented and put up for discussion and voting, changing their content is very difficult. ISO processes are cumbersome and time-consuming, often making them voluntary, rather than mandatory – such as ISO 27001, despite it being the golden standard on information security.[71] However, as this report has alluded to, the outcome of standardisation does not always represent the best solutions for the industry or the consumers. This is partly because influencing standards is an expensive, complicated and lengthy process and the theoretically best technical solutions do not always win. In addition to allocating fewer resources on standardisation than China, European governments and companies do not always allocate their existing resources effectively.[72] Developing an ISO standard, for instance, can take up to three years, while undergoing regular revisions.[73] In order to influence the process more directly, European countries that prioritise a particular topic can benefit from taking on the secretariat of the technical committee(s) addressing that topic. The advantages include chairing the TC, setting the agenda and indirectly influencing the work programme.
Another reason why standardisation is more effectively driven in China than in the Netherlands relates to insufficient cooperation between the public and private sectors. In the Netherlands, processes are largely dominated by the private sector, also for formal SDOs. While the Dutch government co-funds topics that it considers important, such as national building codes (which refer to mandatory construction and safety regulations, that often incorporate formal technical standards), the guidance it provides on other, less obvious areas – but perhaps more strategic – is minimal. This contrasts sharply with China’s state-centric approach, where projects and experts receive financial support that is aligned with broader industrial strategy goals, leading to more leadership roles and shorter lead times overall.
In the Netherlands, the communication between NEN, the government and industries regarding developments on specific industries remains a challenge. For instance, there seems to be insufficient signalling – in both directions – regarding important standardisation and technical developments in areas of common interest. To address this flaw, the establishment of a national Dutch standardisation platform, or dialogue, would benefit all of the stakeholders involved or with an interest in standardisation. This would include stakeholders from the government, industry and academia. Another element is that of tracking Chinese developments: an important function that is currently unavailable is monitoring, for example, newsletters from SDOs, the work of TCs (proposals and change requests, etc.) and the data points embedded in standardisation documents. These data points can reveal divergences in technical standards and potential risks, and are essential for evaluating Chinese initiatives and coordinating responses with relevant stakeholders in the corresponding field of expertise.
Another challenge regarding the allocation of resources is time, which partly reflects the perception that standardisation costs yield little benefit. Dutch stakeholders do not allocate sufficient time to delve deeply into the technical matters at stake in SDOs, as standardisation is often treated as an ‘add-on’ rather than having dedicated employees working on the topic. Simply put, functions that are taken as full-time jobs in China are considered side projects in the Netherlands. Consequently, members of the Technical Committees often only have time to attend meetings and vote, leaving little room for drafting or reviewing text proposals – which is where the real impact can be made. One illustration of the lack of sense of urgency relates to some Technical Committees, where months or years can pass until the relevance of a topic is assessed in the EU Member States, while fundamental documents were already being developed internationally. In practice, this means that the risks and impact of the standards being developed are not assessed during these early but key phases. The consequence is that when an EU Member State becomes a permanent member of those TCs, the subject matter often only receives broader attention when the voting rounds begin – when it is too late to have actual influence over the outcomes.
Adopting a long-term vision for standardisation in the Netherlands would be a stepping stone to improve the current approach and avoid the pitfall of engaging with a topic only once an ISO/TC is already established and operational. In relation to this, the role of the Netherlands in existing Technical Committees can be assessed from a more strategic point of view, namely by identifying opportunities to influence the outcome. For instance, if the development of a certain standard is advanced and is not of key importance to the Netherlands, participation may have limited impact and resources may be better used elsewhere. An initial step in this direction would be to evaluate a few – up to five – key ITU/ISO/IEC Technical Committees. A thorough analysis of those bodies’ workings and operational challenges, engaging stakeholders from NSBs, academia and industries working on them, could provide valuable insights into how standardisation works in different sectors, what the actual costs and effort involved are and thus inform better policymaking.
The organisational model of most NSBs is another key aspect affecting how resources are allocated. Companies pay an annual subscription fee to their national standardisation institute and send experts to SDO meetings, whose costs (including labour, travel and accommodation) they are responsible for covering. An ISO meeting, for instance, can take up to three or four days. In Europe, it is often underestimated how costs can increase significantly once an ISO/TC project is approved (i.e. when a standard is authorised for development), leading to insufficient follow-up. This is even more of a challenge for small and medium-sized enterprises, which lack the economic power and influence to participate in these forums, regardless of their intellectual merits and despite some EU-level instruments at their disposal for participation.
In order to move from a reactive approach to standardisation, the Netherlands – and the European Union – should assign more resources and establish teams that can enable a greater role for countries in preparatory activities. Such teams would work on developing or adjusting fundamental documents such as roadmaps, scopes, definitions and baseline standards. These preparatory steps set boundaries and scope for the proposals that come later. Establishing teams that support these activities and also participate (or that support industry experts participating) in projects defined as relevant, focusing on the pre-standardisation phase where foundational principles, such as the scope, are defined, is key to having effective impact. Such a structure across EU Member States would enhance cooperation across the bloc.
Finally, the societal aspects of standardisation are, overall, insufficiently assessed. Impact assessments of human rights should become an inherent part of standardisation processes in all SDOs – at least the formal ones. When it comes to the internet, for instance, this could be a step towards realising the vision of the United Nations General Assembly that human rights online should be protected as human rights offline, a goal also outlined in the Dutch International Cyber Strategy 2023–2028.[74]
