Federal law on technical regulation and its application in refrigeration engineering

The state technical policy of Russia for the last 10-15 years has been formed under the conditions of transition of the national economy from centrally planned economy to market relations. The consequences of liberalization of the economy, often quite painful and not always conflict-free, could not but affect such a very specific structure as the system of national standards and, in particular, standards for refrigeration equipment. The analysis showed that the overwhelming majority of standards operating today in this field does not meet the conditions of market economy and requires either radical revision or cancellation. Ideology of the new approach to the development and application of standards was proposed in the concept of reforming Gosstandart, considered in October 2002 at the meeting of the Russian Government. Its fundamentals were outlined by B.S.Aleshin, former chairman of Gosstandart (nowadays Deputy Chairman of the Russian Federation Government) in his interview to the newspaper "Economics and Life" of October 18, 2002.
In accordance with this concept it is proposed to remove from the list of subjects and objectives of Gosstandart the function of mandatory certification of products and services for compliance with the requirements of certain standards. In other words, the certification procedure should be carried out not by a body (branch) of Gosstandart in a particular region, but by an independent non-governmental structure (laboratory, center), admitted by Gosstandart to carry out this procedure. According to B. S. Aleshin, the current system of mandatory certification of goods and services has not only become ineffective, but has become a barrier to manufacturers and sellers.
Under the new concept of state technical policy of Russia in the field of standardization and certification of goods and services the State Duma of the Russian Federation prepared and adopted on December 15, 2002 the Federal Law № 184-FZ "On technical regulation", which was approved by the Federation Council on December 18 of the same year and signed by the President on December 27, 2002. The law has come into force since July 1, 2003*. The adoption of this Law is one of the necessary conditions for Russia's accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), because, according to the idea of its authors, it should contribute to the elimination of technical barriers to trade.