European and International Standards for Protective Clothing and Their Influence on Manufacturing, Trade and Use

Standards on protective clothing have been worked on in ISO for over twenty years. For the common market in Europe the different national regulations and standards had to be harmonized in order to eliminate all non tariff trade barriers between the different countries. So CEN started only a few years ago to develop standards for protective clothing. The manufacturing and the use of protective clothing and all other types of PPE is laid down in several EC directives. Products which fulfil the essential requirements of these directives get the CE mark and can be freely moved and sold in the whole common market. Now an effort is made to harmonize the CEN with the ISO standards. This would help not only the free exchange of goods inside the European market but also throughout the whole world.