Only the most important international training agencies are part of RSTC Europe which, together with a similar association in the USA, founded the World Recreational Scuba Training Council (WRSTC). This extremely competent organization is entirely neutral and it therefore carries out the role of "supervisor" for the minimum rules for diving courses.
The establishment of an international organization that approves teaching standards that are applied and recognized internationally represents an important reference point for anyone who has to internationally "recognize" the quality of the rules regarding diver training. It is also a valid point of reference for the issue of local, regional and national laws concerning diving. Membership to WRSTC therefore qualifies the organizations accepted in RSTC Europe, or USA, by virtue of the common minimum standard, as being "internationally recognized".
The European Norms (EN), and then the international standards (ISO), were based on the WRSTC rules.
The training agencies that belong to RSTC Europe can boast an extraordinary number (more than thirty thousand) of professionals involved in diving activities, co-ordinated so that they can all contribute to the development of the diving business. In practice, it is an elite group of instructors and guides who can collaborate together, beyond allegiance to their particular diving agency, and who are assisted by an impressive central training co-ordination agency: the RSTC.