At the moment, our members face a fragmented landscape for testing and certification of their products and services. This adds to costs as companies have to submit multiple applications. It also risks having an inconsistent approach to testing and certification across the EU’s single market.

Pan-European processes for testing, audit and certification would reduce administrative burdens for fire safety and security companies, the vast majority of which are small- and medium-sized enterprises. A European wide process would allow companies to avoid uncertainty and encourage investment if they only had to submit their products and services for testing and certification to a single authority.

We therefore urge the EU institutions, test laboratories and certification bodies to work with the industry to make progress in these and other areas:

• achieving consistent, objective and repeatable processes for testing across Europe;
• over the longer term, developing a single testing and certification scheme for electronic security equipment such as our industry’s CertAlarm* scheme;
• stepping up work between leading laboratories on Multilateral Test Result Recognition Agreements (MTRA);
• improving exchange of information about training and certification schemes for personnel involved in planning and design, engineering, installation and hand over, maintenance and repair of fire safety and security systems.

* CertAlarm is an independent pan-European certification scheme for the fire safety and security industry

Digitalisation is already having a huge impact on our industry and this trend will continue to grow in the future. Cybersecurity, the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are crucial issues for our sector. We and our customers need to take them carefully into account when planning for the future. All participants in the value chain need to be sensitised to the importance of increasing resilience in the face of cyber-attacks. At the same time, the potential of AI needs to be carefully assessed to maximise opportunities this technology offers.

We therefore urge the EU institutions to work with us in the following areas:

• make rapid progress on a Europe-wide voluntary certification mark (quality label) that shows that all reasonable protection measures against cyber-attacks have been taken;
• advance work on standards for cybersecurity, IoT for fire and security systems and Building Information Modelling (BIM);
• promote education programs focusing on the industrial control systems.

Standards for products and services are at the heart of our industry’s success. Euralarm’s members need a fast and flexible standards-setting system because it is the best way to serve the interests of customers, the industry and society. An agile system would help us to respond rapidly to customers’ demands and put European companies on the best footing to serve global markets. It would help us to continue to deliver the highest levels of safety and security to citizens.

Our members will work closely with the key players — European Commission, standards organisations, approval bodies and other organisations — to write the standards that will deliver the highest quality products and services as efficiently as possible.

We therefore urge the EU institutions to work with us to deliver an efficient system that responds to market needs.

Here are some of the areas we would like to see progress over the next five years:

• interoperability standards for building systems;
• remote services;
• standards for the residential market, especially for combined security and home-assisted systems;
• developing and improving standards for service including
  • quality of services;
  • competence of staff involved in planning, design, engineering, installation, maintenance and repair of fire safety and security systems.

Ensuring that the European electronic fire safety and security industry remains a global innovation leader requires high-quality research. The industry will continue to fund R&D efforts but to maximise the quality, scope and potential societal benefits of this research, collaboration and cooperation with the public sector will be crucial.

We therefore urge the EU institutions and research bodies to work with us in the following areas:

• foster partnerships between industry, testing houses, universities and research institutes to identify priority areas and coordinate efforts;
• maximise potential of EU research programmes under Horizon 2020 and its successor.