Identification of significant technical changes in revised European Standards

This page aims to give guidance to CEN technical bodies on the identification of significant technical changes from any previous edition of a document.

1 INTRODUCTION

When identifying the change (s) in a revised document, care should be taken to ensure that the information included is consistent and summarizes the significant technical changes included in the text.
Editorial changes need not be considered.

2 CEN POLICY

In accordance with the CEN/CENELEC Internal Regulations Part 3, when revising a document, the responsible CEN technical body shall provide details of the significant technical changes from the previous edition.

3 GUIDANCE

3.1  The identification of significant technical changes should be agreed by a TC decision on a case-by-case basis.

3.2  (a) The identification of significant technical changes should be included at the CEN enquiry stage, although it would be desirable to consider them at the beginning of the revision of the document. This would facilitate the technical discussions at WG level.

3.2 (b) The identification of significant technical changes should at least be included at the CEN voting stage but is a requirement for publication stage.

3.3  It must be considered as information provided for an easier use by the user of the document and not as an exhaustive list of all technical changes.

3.4  When the list of significant technical changes is short, it may be included in the foreword, preferably after the generic sentence that refers to the superseded document, otherwise the information supplied can be included in an informative annex. A reference to that annex should be included in the foreword, preferably after the generic sentence that refers to the superseded document:

EXAMPLE:
This document supersedes EN XXX:YYYY.
Annex XX provides details of significant technical changes between this document and the previous edition:
For documents treated under the Vienna Agreement, whether under CEN or ISO lead, the ISO practice applies and all significant changes are stated in the Foreword of the ISO text.

3.5 In case the technical body prefers to use a table, the format should be the following (the table should be seen as a guidance tool with general information on the significant technical changes for the help of the user of the document and not as a detailed list of all the changes from the previous edition)

3.6 In case the technical body prefers to use a checklist, the following changes should be considered:

• New clauses, paragraphs, annexes, tables or figures;
• Modified clauses, paragraphs, annexes, tables or figures;
• Deleted clauses, paragraphs, annexes, tables or figures;
• New normative references;
• Deleted normative references.

When the list of significant technical changes is short, it may be included in the foreword, preferably after the generic sentence that refers to the superseded document.

EXAMPLE
This document supersedes EN XXX:YYYY.
EN XXX:YYYY includes the following significant technical changes with respect to EN XXX:YYYY:
– …;
– ….