Recent international political developments have given rise to the formation of powerful free trade and economic areas. This situation has placed new demands on metrology. Starting from the objectives and tasks of the national metrology institutes, the traditional activities are realization, maintenance and dissemination of the units. For quality assurance in industry, the traceability of measurement and test equipment to national measurement standards and its assurance plays an important part. In individual countries, national calibration services and testing laboratories form an indispensable modern infrastructure for the distribution of metrological competence. The creation of a uniform single European market and the recent establishment of the European Economic Area (EEA) from 1 January 1994, have given metrology new impetus. The dissemination of the units in the intraregional European area - with the objective of mutually recognizing calibration certificates by removing technical barriers to trade - requires not only technical competence but also transparency through confidence-building measures. The traceability of measurements and their assurance by interlaboratory comparisons are of decisive importance and require that international cooperation should be extended. Moreover, countries outside the EEA have shown an increasing interest in the mutual recognition of certificates so an interregional assurance of traceability has to be guaranteed. As a result of this development, international organizations of long standing such as the Comité International des Poids et Mesures (CIPM) are confronted with new tasks and new organizations such as the International Laboratory Accreditation Conference (ILAC) have been formed.