The main direction of FAS efforts in technical regulation: exposing and eliminating unreasonable barriers

Deputy Head of FAS Department for Control over Chemical Industry and Agro-Industrial Complex, Andrey Yerin, took part in the All-Russian Conference “Standardization and conformity assessment as tools for protecting interests of business” in Kazan on 14 June 2017.

The welcoming remarks at the Conference were given by the Member of the Collegium (Minister) on Technical Regulation of the Eurasian Economic Commission, Valery Koreshkov and Deputy Prime-Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan – Minister of the Republic of Tatarstan for Industry and Commerce, Albert Karimov. The key focus was on successful achievements and issues in economic development of Russia and Tatarstan and the role of standardization as a tool for protecting the interests of business.

Andrey Yerin pointed out that the main area of FAS work on technical regulation is to expose and eliminate unreasonable barriers that prevent development of competition. The efforts are undertaken at the inter-departmental level as well as under the frame of the Eurasian Economic Commission.

Currently there are valid agreements between FAS and the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RUIE) and the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology. In the opinion of FAS representative, “collaboration facilitates development of competition on the markets, enhances their performance efficiency and improves business climate in the Russian Federation in general”.

Andrey Yerin talked about the need for preliminary assessment of the documents drafted by the Technical Standardization Committees of Rosstandard [the Federal Agency for Technical Regulation and Metrology], whether they comply with the antimonopoly law. According to him, today FAS is involved in the work of 68 specialized technical committees, which is about one forth of total number of technical committees.

As a practical example of the technical regulation efforts, Andrey Yerin mentioned a warning to the Ministry of Agriculture of the Russian Federation when FAS had revealed signs of violating Part 1 Article 15 of No. 135-FZ Federal Law “On Protection of Competition”. It is essential that the primary ground in this case was the 32219-2013 GOST state standard coming into effect – “Milk and dairy products. Immunoenzyme methods for determining presence of antibiotics”, that restricts possibilities of economic entities to choose equipment and test-kits to a single particular producer.

* The Conference was organized by RUIE Committee on Technical Regulation, Standardization and Conformity Assessment jointly the Government of the Republic of Tatarstan. The event was supported by the Eurasian Economic Commission, the Ministry of Industry and Commerce of the Russian Federation, Rosstandard, “State Regional Centre for Standardization, Metrology and Testing in the Republic of Tatarstan” Federal Budgetary Institution and “Techexport” information network.