The objective of the ETSI, according to its statutes is to produce the technical standards which are necessary to achieve a large unified European telecommunication market.

The European Telecommunications Standard Institute (ETSI) has the responsibility for defining standards related to technical requirements of apparatus as well as standards concerning test methods, measurement and experimental set-up. The latter standards give manufacturers precise control tools during the design phase and give operators and approvals bodies suitable methods to verify and perform the acceptance tests of new products.

The Technical Committee 'Electromagentic Compatibility and Radio Matters' (TC ERM) is responsible within ETSI for the production of standards in the field of EMC. Recently ETSI has received a mandate (BC-T-319) from the European Commission to produce standards in the framework of the EMC Directive for telecommunications network equipment and for radio-communication equipment.

The ERM Technical Committee have the responsibility to define EMC requirements for equipment used within the telecommunications network and for radio-communication apparatus.

The main standards developed in ETSI are outlined below :

Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) requirements for equipment installed and used in the telecommunications network.

European Telecommunications Standard, ETS 300 386, sets out a complete electromagnetic compatibility specification based on European and international standards for equipment installed in telecommunications centres and used in the telecommunications network. Requirements defined in the standard haven been based on a survey of information on the environment in which the equipment will be expected to operate. The document has been published in two parts. Part one (a product family standard) contains the test levels and test methods. Part two contains the acceptance criteria.

Radiated emission testing of physically large telecommunications systems.

European Telecommunications Standard, ETS 300 137, specifies the technical requirements for the radiated emissions testing of physically large telecommunications systems. It applies to application specific systems. The results from testing will provide compliance verification of the systems with the EMC Directive. No further testing is then required on any system made up of parts of that representative system, which thus negates the need for testing every installed system.