For two days, the Construction Technology Institute (AIDICO) was host to
a meeting of the European Standardisation Committee (CEN/TC53/WG10), which is responsible for drawing up technical standards that must be met by equipment and protection systems for use in temporary work at heights during building processes.

The Committee is made up of experts from all the EU countries who, in each case, present the results of work carried out by their corresponding national groups. In the case of Spain, AIDICO represents and defends the national groups’ decisions. The groups are made up of important universities and technology centres from the country, as well as professional associations, construction companies, safety implementation companies and manufacturers of safety elements.

A panel of experts from the Committee develops and approves these technical standards which, together with each country’s legal texts – mainly since the transposition of the European Directive on General Product Safety (2001/95/CE) – have become compulsory to comply with and enable the conditions of thousands of professionals from the construction sector to be improved.

Therefore, advantage is used of the decisions that are being taken in order to make companies aware of the need to comply with the regulations, as a means of guaranteeing levels of safety for work at heights.

These technical standards aim to ensure the safety of products and, in consequence that of the workers. They also ensure that manufacturing processes of the equipment and safety elements are carried out in compliance with certain important quality control parameters to ultimately prevent accidents which, in most cases, have serious and/or mortal consequences

During the European Committee members’ stay, AIDICO acted as host and organized both the technical meetings and the corresponding tests that have been carried out in the Institute’s laboratory for safety elements. Likewise, advantage was taken of the occasion to present work carried out in this Valencian technology centre, which celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.

The next meeting of the European Standardisation Committee will be held in Paris on May 18 and 19, where AIDICO will exhibit contents of the latest jobs carried out by the Spanish working group, who will be meeting up again next February.