HZN History

Founding
 

After the Republic of Croatia became independent, a law was adopted on taking over the laws that were applied in Croatia as constituent state laws (Standardization Act, Units of Measurement and Measuring Instruments Act, and Precious Metals Control Act, Narodne novine (Official Gazette of the Republic of Croatia) 53/91). By this law, authority for the fields of standardization, metrology, certification and metrology was transferred from the former Yugoslav state to the Republic of Croatia, as from 8 October 1991.
 
The Government of the Republic of Croatia at first entrusted the Ministry of Science and Technology with the tasks in the above mentioned fields. The tasks were then taken over by the newly established Republic Institute for Standardization and Metrology (Narodne novine No. 73 of 31 December 1991) which, under the Law on the Structure and Authority of Ministries and Other Public Authorities (Narodne novine 55/92), changed its name into the State Office for Standardization and Metrology (DZNM) in 1992.
 
DZNM integrated the activities in the field of standardization, metrology and accreditation, often called „institutional quality infrastructure“. This approach enabled efficient work and fast institutional development.
 
In the 1990s DZNM succeeded in establishing excellent relations with international and European organizations in the field of standardization, metrology and accreditation and an intensive cooperation with many national institutions in Europe. DZNM became associate member of European organizations, to become, on fulfilling certain conditions, full member later on as a pre-requisite for Croatia's accession to EU.
 
 

CROATIAN STANDARDS INSTITUTE – Croatian national standardization body

 
Under the Stabilisation and Association Agreement (Article 73) the Republic of Croatia undertook to take measures to gradually achieve harmonization with Community technical regulations and the European standardization, metrology and accreditation, as well as conformity assessment procedures.

For the sake of implementation of acquis communautaire, the Republic of Croatia is obliged to establish appropriate administrative structures and institutional framework. Primarily, the regulatory function (responsibility of state administration) had to be separated from the standardization, accreditation and certification functions.
 
In accordance with the National Programme for the Integration of the Republic of Croatia into the European Union for 2003, the following acts were adopted: Act on Technical Requirements for Products and on Conformity Assessment (Narodne novine 158/2003) as a part of new technical legislation and the fundamental act separating the above mentioned functions, General Product Safety Act (Narodne novine 158/2003), transposing the EU Directive on general product safety (2001/95/EC), and special acts governing standardization (Standardization Act (Narodne novine 163/2003)), metrology (Metrology Act (Narodne novine 163/2003)) and accreditation (Accreditation Act (Narodne novine 158/2003)).

The Croatian Standards Institute (HZN) was established by the Government of the Republic of Croatia in October 2004 by the Decree on the Establishment of the Croatian Standards Institute (Narodne novine 158/2004 and 44/2005) pursuant to the Standardization Act (Narodne novine 163/2003) as the national standards body of the Republic of Croatia. Establishment of HZN as a public institution outside state administration system is a part of the process of harmonizing Croatian quality infrastructure with the conditions for EU membership and one of the results of separating the functions in accordance with the adopted acts.
 
In March 2005 the Government appointed the Chairman and members of HZN Administrative Board and the Acting Director General (Narodne novine 34/2005). After preparations and adoption of the Statute and other acts needed to take over human and other resources from the State Office for Metrology, HZN started its work as independent public institution on 1 July 2005.
 
With the establishment and beginning of operation of the Croatian Standards Institute in 2005, EU's requirement to separate the regulatory function from the standardization, accreditation and conformity assessment functions was fulfilled. This was a pre-requisite for harmonization with the acquis in the area of free movement of goods and for the beginning of negotiations on Croatia's full membership in EU in this field.
 
As member of the international organizations for standardization ISO and IEC, National Standards Body in ETSI, the European Telecommunications Standards Institute, and associate member of the European organizations for standardization CEN and CENELEC, HZN obtained the right to information and documents of these organizations, the right for Croatian representatives to participate in their work and the right to adopt their documents on the national level.
 
The Croatian Standards Institute has had a special role in the process of harmonizing legislation of the Republic of Croatia with the acquis communautaire in the field of free movement of goods. This concerns presentation, promotion and application of European voluntary standardization principles, requirement to create national infrastructure for gathering all stakeholders and creating national consensus in the process of adopting and applying European standards on the national level in accordance with the European rules.
 
Adoption of all European standards as Croatian standards and their application for the sake of fulfilling the requirements of new technical regulations enables a European level of product safety and free movement of goods on the Croatian market, as well as the entrance of Croatian products to the European market without technical barriers to trade. Adoption of all European standards was one of the pre-requisites for HZN membership in the European organizations for standardization CEN and CENELEC, which was a pre-requisite of Croatia's EU membership.
 
Fulfilling all the conditions for HZN's membership in the European organizations for standardization CEN and CENELEC was a task that was fulfilled by HZN in cooperation with state authorities. HZN became their full member on 1 January 2010.
 

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