Febr 2008 : The validation of the Hygienic parameters Ecoli and Salmonella has been completed. And the consultation through BT/TF151 on these standards and additional standards not fully validated has been launched.
13 july 2007: Part of the project HORIZONTAL dealing with Inorganic parameters, Organic parameters and Biological parameters has now been completed by providing the 34 draft Horizontal standards, of which most with performance characteristics, for further processing by BT/TF 151. Performance characteristics were obtained from the validation studies earlier this year with participation of 79 European laboratories and statistical evaluation by JRC-IES and ECN.
For some parameters validation results were not foreseen (sampling documents and pharmaceuticals). For some others the response was too low to initiate validation (Flame AAS, Graphite furnace AAS), which implies that apparently, the methods find very limited use in Europe. One parameter (bulk density) was not taken forward to validation, because vertical standards in the respective sectors are different and could not be brought together. In total more than 34000 individual analytical results were processed in some 500 validation runs.
The work has suffered delays, which were first caused by the implementation of a 3-level consultation (desk study stage, ruggedness evaluation stage and finally validation stage) of experts nominated by national standardisation bodies (NSB's) after the project had started and time schedules were already fixed. And secondly by the late supply of materials for the validation. We also suffered from the fact that the electronic data submission system, was not up to the magnitude and complexity provided here, which resulted in the need for manual handling of excel files in different languages and results provided in different units.
Horizontal-HYG is still ongoing and will finish February 28, 2008.
The Task groups set up under BT/Task Force 151, which was specifically installed by CEN CMC for handling the documents from project Horizontal, have performed generally well. Many experts have made time available for commenting, which has been very valuable and is greatefully acknowledged. The editing of the standards by the NSB's has provided more homogeneous documents than by individual standards processing. In evaluating the performance of the standards, it has become clear that there are several horizontal standards for which the scope could be wider than soil, sludge and treated biowaste and could be extended with waste. This applies at least for PCB, most likely PAH (under validation in TC 292 second half of 2007), dry matter, TOC and LOI. HORIZONTAL has not been an easy ride. There were and still are obstacles in developing horizontal standards in CEN caused by formal reasons.
11 January 2007 : The deadline for submission of validation test results for Complxity group 1 has been extended to January 31, 2007.
5 December 2006: The comments tables for weeds and impurities have been revised. The comments (UK) were already dealt with at the TG 7 meeting, however by mistake the conclusions were not included in the previous tables. Comments tables for TOC, LOI, EC and pH have also been revised. These comments (forwarded by Tim Evans, UK before the deadline) were by a mistake misplaced. The comments for TOC, LOI, EC and pH were not specifically dealt with at the TG 5 meeting; however a part of the comments were comparable to comments from other NSB's and thus have been dealt with at the TG 5 meeting. There was no need to make substantial changes to the standards prior to validation. Final technical (based on the validation) and editorial changes can be made when the performance characteristics are added. Time table has been updated
26/11/2006 New information on the validation of Horizontal standards is given on the page Validation.
May 2006: The preparations for the EU wide validation of horizontal standards is in preparation. Laboratories interested in participating are requested to fill the form below and return it by email as specified. The application should be seen as an experession of interest to be confirmed later, when the final information on standards, parameters and samples is avaible.
Form: Participation in interlaboratory study-HORIZONTAL 
November 2005: Summary of Resolutions of the 5th meeting of CEN BT TF 151 available.
September 28 2005: Message from project Horizontal co-ordinator, dr. Hans van der Sloot: "Since the last BT/TF 151 meeting there has been a growing realisation on the part of NSB's,TC's and the participants in the project HORIZONTAL that the consultation process on deliverables is hampered by an insufficient synchronisation of the different subjects. This lack of synchronisation is the result of the realisation of the overall project on the basis of different contracts with different starting dates and timelines for individual deliverables. In order to streamline the consultation process and the project organisation to ensure the realisation of the overall project deliverables, i.e. fully endorsed horizontal EN standards, a number of changes to the planning of the project and associated actions to be taken by DG ENV, DG RES, CEN and BT/TF151 will be proposed. This process is ongoing and as soon as more final information on timetable of deliverables is available it will be placed on the website."
September 09 2005: The BT/TF 151 leaflet with information on project Horizontal is available (direct link)