According to ancient regulations

The current law “On Technical Regulation” slows down the growth of industry

The progress of technical regulation reform was discussed at a meeting of the Expert Council on Metallurgy and Mining (its members include State Duma deputies, representatives of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs, the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation and the scientific community). According to the meeting participants, the reform of technical regulation is proceeding extremely slowly. First of all, the development of technical regulations in all industries lags behind.

The head of the council, deputy chairman of the Duma Committee on Industry, Georgy Shevtsov, noted that “the Russian law “On Technical Regulation” (adopted in 2003 - Ed .) in its current form is seriously different from its analogues in other states, which is not its strength side." Thus, in Russia, mandatory technical standards should be established primarily by federal laws. At the same time, the law imposes requirements both on products and on the processes of their production, and these requirements must be comprehensive. This significantly complicates the preparation of texts of regulations. Foreign legislators do not use this approach. Foreign laws establish general safety requirements, and technical regulations are approved by acts of the executive branch. To correct the situation in Russian law technical regulation needs to be amended.

The deputy emphasized that the ineffectiveness of the current law is also evidenced by the fact that in four years since its adoption, the government has not submitted a single draft technical regulation to the State Duma. This takes the problem beyond the scope of metallurgy or the mining industry and “sooner or later will lead to a decrease in the efficiency of the entire country’s economy,” Mr. Shevtsov emphasized.

One of the main shortcomings of the current law is the inability to make changes to existing GOSTs, SNiPs and other regulatory documents. “As a result, while technical regulations in these industries have not been adopted, we sometimes work according to rules approved a dozen or more years ago. Their relevance and effectiveness are known. Entire industries are sometimes slowed down due to problems with the law,” said Georgy Shevtsov. At the same time, to date, almost a hundred regulations have been prepared that are hanging in the air, often due to the impossibility of agreement between the interested parties.

The amendments proposed by the deputies exclude from the scope of technical regulation production processes that do not affect product safety, as well as labor protection issues, leaving them under the jurisdiction of the Labor Code. It is also proposed to equate technical regulations adopted by the government with the public review procedure regulations adopted by the State Duma. It is noteworthy that the proposed amendments to the law on technical regulation establish the need to use international standards in this area. This is a step in a completely different direction from the current version of the law, which experts call backward and one-sided.

Participants of the Expert Council stated that the problem of technical regulation itself is not as noticeable outwardly as, for example, the slippage of the drug supply system. But they warned that this is a very dangerous misconception. “There are no uniform regulations - and we are not immune from the problems that the disunity of technical standards gives rise to. For example, the food industry without technical regulations raises no questions for anyone. And the nuclear industry without technical regulations is already scary. There is only one solution - the adoption of amendments to the law on technical regulation,” Deputy Shevtsov summed up the decision of the Expert Council.

Last Friday, the State Duma postponed the adoption of the amendments in the third reading to the beginning of April at the last moment.

Sergey SMIRNOV