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33rd meeting of the EA General Assembly

International activities

33rd meeting of the General Assembly of the European co-operation for Accreditation (EA GA) was held in the period between 27th and 28th May in Prague, Czech Republic.

The following resolutions were adopted:

- The General Assembly mandated the EA Executive Committee to elaborate on the issues included in the Chairman´s report and to come up with written proposals in advance of the following EA GA for comments and ratified the results of the electronic ballots completed since the last General Assembly meeting according to EAGA(14)01 Document.

- The General Assembly authorised the EA Chairman to sign the Services Contract under the Procurement procedure “Support services regarding the accreditation aspects of the project on a European voluntary Quality Assurance scheme for Breast Cancer Services underpinned by Accreditation and high-quality Guidelines” with the European Commission – Joint Research Centre.

- The General Assembly elected Jiřĺ Růžička (CAI, Czech Republic) as a new member of the Financial Oversight Committee (FOC) for a two-year mandate starting on 1 January 2015.

- The General Assembly agreed that the Executive Committee could start a new work item to revise EA-1/17: Rules of Procedure further to internal audit results and other structural changes.

- The General Assembly approved the revised EA-1/20 S1 as presented (Document EAGA(14)14), including the increase of the 375€ to 500€ limit of the daily rate under the operating grant.

- The General Assembly mandated the Executive Committee, in compliance with EA-1/20 A:2012, to review, adjust and present the revised activity-based budget 2014, Work Plan 2014 and EA Plan 2014-2017 to the General Assembly for endorsement. Endorsement may be realized by email if necessary.

- The General Assembly, acting upon recommendation from the Executive Committee, approved the proposed EA activity-based budget for 2015 and EA membership fee schedule for 2015.

- The General Assembly mandated the Executive Committee, in compliance with EA -1/20 A:2012, to review, adjust and present the revised Activity-based budget 2015, Work Plan 2015 and EA Plan 2014-2017 to the General Assembly for endorsement according to the new FPA and financing provided by it. Endorsement may be realized by email if necessary.

- The General Assembly, acting upon recommendation from the Executive Committee, resolved the following provisions relating to membership fee calculation:

EA-member NABs are expected to provide the EA Secretariat with information on the number of accreditations delivered for the preceding year as this is used for the calculation of the annual membership fees. NABs which would fail to submit the information when required would be charged a membership fee calculated based on the last data sent to the Secretariat with an increase factor of 15% per year for which data are missing.

- The General Assembly approves that the rules for calculation of EA membership fees are introduced in EA-1/17 S5: EA Rules of Procedure for levying of membership fees to be combined into a single document.

- The General Assembly approved the 2015 Work Programme of the Multilateral Agreement Council, Horizontal Harmonisation Committee, Communications and Publications Committee, Certification Committee, Laboratory Committee and Inspection Committee.

- The General Assembly agreed that the Communications and Publications Committee should start a new work item to revise EA-1/14: A: 2011 - Procedure for Development and Approval of EA Documents and the Adoption of ILAC/IAF Documents.

- Noting that the current Organic Farming Regulation is being revised, the General Assembly agreed that the Certification Committee should start working on the revision of EA-3/12 immediately after the publication of the revision. The corresponding NWIP will subsequently be submitted for approval as foreseen in EA-1/14.

- The General Assembly, acting upon recommendation from the Certification Committee, adopted IAF Mandatory Document for the Application of ISO 14065:2013 (IAF MD 6: 2014) as a mandatory document for all EA Members.

- The General Assembly endorsed the withdrawal of EA-2/09: Policy on the Accreditation of Providers of PT Schemes.

- The General Assembly agrees that the Laboratory Committee starts a new work item to draft a guidance document on Reference Material Producers accreditation.

- Reissuance of test reports when the trade name / trademark of the tested product was changed:

Test reports shall be reissued only for the correction of errors and the inclusion of omitted data available at the time of test. The unique identification of the sample shall be given and any manufacturers branding or labelling may also be shown and marked as such.

The practice which consists for an accredited laboratory in reissuing a test report under accreditation when the trade name / trademark of the tested product has changed (without testing it again) is not permitted, even with a clear reference to the initial report that it replaces. The product tested has been clearly identified both in the contract review and in the test report. The laboratory shall not assume the responsibility for declaring that the product with the new trade name / trademark is strictly identical to the one tested; this responsibility belongs to the client.

A transition period of one year for the complete application of the resolution is defined in order to allow the market to adapt to the change.

- The General Assembly endorsed the withdrawal of EA-4/10 G 2002: Accreditation in Microbiological Laboratories.

The Accreditation Body of Serbia signed on this occasion the new EA MLA that, in addition to testing, calibration, inspection and product certification, now includes certification of management systems and certification of persons.

Jasna Stojanović, ATS Acting Director, attended the 33rd EA GA meeting on behalf of ATS.