Standards facilitate international trade and therefore became important when the European Single Market, with free movement of goods and services, was established in 1985. When a product complies with a standard, it can almost always be freely marketed in other EU countries and does not have to go through a number of time consuming and cost-intensive national control measures. Most often, a standard will account for essential parts of a product or a process. This may be in the form of a description of procedures, specifications or establishing technical terms.
