European Sign Federation

Dear Members, colleagues and friends,

With Christmas wishes and probably ditto boxes all around it is time to let some steam off and evaluate what happened in the past year.  2025 was a remarkable year indeed.

For us, europeans, the curse of war did not disappear. Whether this affected each one of you is doubtful but to our society it meant a lot. Projects were put on hold, investments were lean and hesitation was all around. In some cases companies struggled to survive, not always successfully. The vulnerability of the european way of life was demonstrated in protests where people want to hold on what is ‘achieved’ even if national treasuries cannot keep on going like this. Surely this is an uncomfortable situation and rising energy prices in combination with arrogant Green Deals make life harder for citizens and companies alike. It must be comfortable to sit at the top and push decisions down the throat of citizens below, as long as one sits in that ivory tower.  It’s not business as usual.

On both sides of the atlantic we see mergers coming up, the scale may be different on either side but the same thing is happening. During my visit to the ISA show at the end of March it became clear to me that small may be beautiful but big eats the pie. Only exhibitions are harder to fill but more happens outside the halls. The trend in europe is similar and where we are busy in saving energy our counterparts don’t have the same problem. It is a different world. The same goes for standards or technical information.

I am convinced ISA does well in setting standards for their market but this is not 1:1 transposable to the old continent. UL is not CE and has a different background. Even production machines, skyworkers and cranes are quite different. And so are wiring rules.

We, in Europe, have a variety of cultures, languages and sensitivities. That reflects in a different look on products. Sometimes it creates frictions among experts of the various member countries and makes decision processes long and difficult. Just to name a few examples : EN1090 and EN50107. The latter commission started in January 1990 under the late Peter Mason and it took more than 3 decades before new generations could wrap it up. Almost.  EN50107-3 was a real pain and created so much frustration as the definitions collided with existing standards. But we wanted to do it right and persisted.

I am now pleased to anounce that a new cooperation in Cenelec opens a windows that for long we did not think possible. The german DIN institute is also reaching out to help us. We cannot tolerate any longer that inferior products and installations disturb our market and courts cannot use references for how it had to be done correctly   The level playfield beckons.

I wish you all, small and big company members alike, a prosperous 2026 in good health.

Luc Steegmans,

President of the European Sign Federation