Access to all technical building standards will be subject to payment

Prague - Access to all technical standards in construction will again come at a cost. Payments will be reinstated by an amendment concerning technical requirements for products, which was signed today by President Miloš Zeman. The amendment abolishes a provision in the construction law that stated certain standards must be freely accessible to the public.

The Ministry of Industry and Trade requested the repeal due to the protection of copyright to technical standards. According to Minister Jan Mládek (ČSSD), without this amendment, the Czech Republic faced exclusion from international normalization organizations. Mládek also argued that the majority of other technical standards are subject to fees.

The amendment thus abolishes the provision that states that if the construction law or implementing regulations refer to a technical standard, this standard must be freely accessible to the public. In practice, this means that only a few standards referred to by the law are freely accessible on the website of the Ministry of Industry. Critics of the repeal of free access pointed to the link between the law and the standards.

The amendment is related to the new law on conformity assessment for designated products. In connection with it, some passages of the existing law are clarified and duplicative provisions are abolished.