Commission on Technical Barriers to Trade (KTPO)

The Commission for Technical Barriers to Trade was established by Decision of the Minister of Industry and Trade No.189 of 25 October 2002, Following the Government Resolution No. 232 of 6 March 2002 and in accordance with of Principles for the management and coordination of the process of adoption and application of EC technical regulations.

The main mission of the KTPO is to:

• create conditions to ensure interdepartmental cooperation,
• coordinate and manage the technical harmonisation process,
• ensure exchange of information and cooperation with labour authorities, institutions and organisations active in related fields, including the economic and social partners.

The Commission is an advisory body to the Minister of Industry and Trade.

Chairman: Chairman of ÚNMZ, currently Ing. J. Kratochvíl

Secretary: Director of the International Relations Department of ÚNMZ, currently Ing. J. Kafková.

ÚNMZ also provides the secretariat of the Commission.

The Commission is expected to meet at least twice a year. Archive of meetings held can be found here.

List of KTPO members

The competence of the KTPO is defined in the Decision of the Minister of Industry and Trade č. 189/2002. The basic duties of the Chairperson, Secretary and members of the Commission are set out in the Rules of Procedure of KTPO.

At the first meeting of the representatives of the ministries, which took place on 10 December 2002, the representatives of the ministries were invited to nominate their representatives to the so-called sub-commissions, which are as of that date:

1) Notification Subcommission - 2015/1535/EU (in relation to Directive 2015/1535/EU) and Notification Subcommission - TBT (in relation to the WTO Agreement on Technical Barriers to Trade) (wto.tbt@unmz.cz);

2) ECE/UN Subcommission (following the activities of the Working Party 6 on Regulatory Cooperation and Standardization (WP.6) of the UN Economic Commission for Europe, which is now also focusing on market surveillance; currently the Czech Republic is represented by the employee of ÚNMZ - Ing. Miroslav Chloupek). The aim of the creation of this subcommission is to ensure the cooperation of individual ministries in this area (e.g. comments on WP.6 materials, processing of information, etc.) - the subcommission is coordinated by RNDr. Klára Popadičová (popadicova@unmz.cz);

3) Subcommission on Regulation 1025/2012 - the aim of the creation of this subcommission is to ensure a discussion of the documents submitted to the Committee with all stakeholders at the national level and to prepare a unified position of the Czech Republic - the coordination of the subcommission is provided by Ing. Miroslav Čermák (extrel@unmz.cz).

Note from the SOGS subcommission - as of 12 June 2013, the subcommission was abolished due to the termination of the European Commission's Advisory Group on Standardisation and Conformity Assessment (SOGS), which was replaced by the Group of Experts on the Internal Market for Products (IMP), which is divided into three subgroups, as of 1 January 2013:

a)  IMP Working Group on Accreditation and Conformity Assessment (participation in the meetings is ensured by ÚNMZ);

b)  IMP Working Group on Market Surveillance (participation in the meetings is ensured by the CTIA);

c)  IMP Working Group on Information and Communication System of Market Surveillance (participation in the meetings is ensured by the CTIA).

Where a representative has not been nominated for each subcommittee, the duly appointed KTPO member remains a member.

At the request of the invited economic and social partners, the CTPO, including its subcommittees, is expanded to include these representatives. Directories for all sub-commissions are compiled and kept up to date and distributed to members for information and use.