Tetiana KYSELIOVA:"State Standardization Committee wants to cooperate, but with no double standards"

The Day questioned State Standard Committee Chairwoman Tetiana Kyseliova during Quality Week, which came to end last week.

"What did Ukraine come to Quality Week with?"

"The State Standardization Committee came to European Quality Week with fifty agreements in the sphere of standardization, metrology, and certification with 29 countries, including 17 international agreements. In particular with all the CIS states, Baltic states, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Israel, China, Croatia, and Slovenia. Negotiations with Switzerland, Germany, and the USA are still in progress. Ukrainian experts have developed in last few years over two thousand standards. 60% of our standards meet or take into account requirements of their foreign counterparts. The work on mutual acceptance of certification results is being conducted in Ukraine.

"Governments of the developed European countries are taking a wait and see attitude, especially when it comes to undertaking mutual responsibility for the safety and quality of imported good. Sometimes we have the impression that they are feeling out the possibility of trade relations, based on the one-sided advantage. The ISO-9000 standard was accepted in Ukraine in 1996, and now we have accepted ISO-14000, too. However, the procedure of mutual recognition of these standards is being impeded, unfortunately, and the QSAR program stipulating mutual recognition of the certification has been suspended due to pressure from the developed states."

"What do domestic producers, whose products have undergone quality certification, do in this situation?"

"Unfortunately, metallurgy, rolled metal plants, and machine-building plants, which manufacture competitive products, mainly fail to overcome artificial protectionist barriers. Firms, interested in importing Ukrainian rolled metal, demand our companies undergo quality certification in the American certification organs. It is worth recalling here that our producers have certificates of meeting the quality systems of both Ukrainian and separate European certification organs.

"However, importers seek one-sided simplification of their access to Ukrainian market. They suggest for this purpose that we acknowledge so-called "international certificates ISO-9000" (without confirmation of product safety and quality by means of compliance certificates). However, now we can provide more than enough examples of where products from companies known the world over do not meet safety requirements, though the company's representatives present a certificate of meeting the ISO-9000 standard."

"What can you say about the outlook for cooperation between the State Standardization Committee and European Union?"

"The State Standard Committee initiated the government resolution No. 224 of last year stipulating the gradual introduction of normative acts based on EU directives and a program of reviewing our instructions and legislative base. I should note that the requirements of European standards are different from international ones. To be more precise, EU countries accept up to 20% of the ISO standards, and their implementation level differs correspondingly. The requirements of the International Electrotechnical Commission on the safety and quality of electrical appliances are more stringent than the EU standards. The level of out domestic standards is characterized by the fact that all our methods are acknowledged by ISO experts.

Now another problem becomes pressing: how do we coordinate international standard requirements with American standards? We are ready to cooperate with American partners to settle these differences, and we understand that it takes a few years to develop and coordinate the ISO standard.

"Ukraine keeps its obligations, stipulated by GATT/WTO, but it cannot agree with demands by the USA and other developed countries to give their products free access to the Ukrainian market with no reciprocal obligations. I believe this is what calls forth the pressure upon the State Standardization Committee aimed at making Ukraine admit that its technical regulation does not meet international requirements. Later, upon our joining the World Trade Organization, an attempt will be made on this basis to achieve the complete liquidation of our technical regulation.