Technical and non-tariff barriers

Technical regulations and standards may vary from one country to another. For producers and exporters, these differences represent a barrier because their products must be adapted to the intended market.

Standards and regulations shall be drawn up which protect consumers, flora and fauna and the environment or to provide the consumer with information such as the composition of the product.

Standards and technical regulations shall also be used to protect the industry against imported products which are identical or similar. Therefore, they are a technical commercial barrier. With an end in import duties comes an increased interest in these types of barriers.

In order to decrease the number of technical commercial barriers, an agreement has been reached within the World Trade Organization (WTO) which recommends the use of international standards.

Any standards which do not meet international standards must be notified to the WTO. For this reason, all member states represent the basis of measures (transparency) and may provide input or propose reasonable technical measures. Additional information on this subject may be found on the WTO's website.

Businesses may report any problems which they encounter with third countries in this regard here.

The principle of free circulation of goods is applicable within Europe. Likewise, technical standards also play a role. More information can be found on the following pages.

The FPS Economy is responsible for Belgian notification of technical rules and standards to the WTO.