35th meeting of the EA General Assembly
International activities
35th 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 Athens, Greece. The most important resolutions that were adopted are as follows:
- EA GA elects the following officers to the EA Executive Committee (EA EX) for a two-year mandate starting on 1 January 2016:
- Thomas Facklam – EA Chair,
- Geir Samuelsen - EA Vice-Chair,
- Paulo Tavares - EA Multilateral Agreement Council Chair,
- Ignasio Pina - EA Horizontal Harmonization Committee Chair,
- Peter Kronvall - EA Communications & Publications Committee Chair,
- Laurent Vinson - EA Laboratory Committee Chair,
- Kevin Belson - EA Certification Committee Chair,
- Rolf Straub - EA Inspection Committee Chair,
4 additional members of the Executive Committee: Maria Papatzikou, Rozsa Ring, Emanuele Riva and Jan van der Poel
and three members of the Financial Oversight Committee: Paul Stennett, Claudio Boffa and Jĺrĺ Ruzicka.
- EA GA, acting upon the recommendation from the Executive Committee, approves the Final Technical Report for the period 26/02/2013 - 25/02/2015 relating to the Specific Agreement concluded with the European Union (represented by the European Commission, Directorate A – International and Climate Strategy of Directorate-General Climate Action - DG CLIMA) for a Grant for Action for “Implementation of accreditation and peer evaluation of National Accreditation Bodies according to EN ISO 14065 and Commission Regulation (EU) No 600/2012”
- EA GA, acting upon the recommendation from the Executive Committee, approves the Final Report on EA Work Programme 2014
- EA GA agrees that the Executive Committee starts a new work item to revise EA-1/13 A: 2009 - EA’s relationship with accreditation bodies of countries not being members of the EU or EFTA according to Document EAEX(15)03 Rev01
- EA GA accepts the Financial Oversight Committee’s Report on EA 2014 Accounts, the revised activity-based budget 2015 and the proposed EA activity-based budget for 2016 and EA membership fee schedule for 2016
- EA GA approves the 2016 Work Programme of the Multilateral Agreement Council, Horizontal Harmonisation Committee, Certification Committee, Laboratory Committee and Inspection Committee
- EA GA determines that both ISO/IEC 17025 and ISO/IEC 17020 are appropriate as accreditation standards for sampling as a stand-alone activity. The fact that ISO/IEC 17025 contains a specific section on sampling, it lends itself very well to assessment of sampling as a stand-alone activity. The criteria included within this shall form the basis for all accreditation for sampling and hence if it is decided that ISO/IEC 17020 is the most appropriate standard then the requirements for sampling in ISO/IEC 17025 shall be included in the assessment.
- EA GA recognises that Option B in standards on CABs (17000 series) is included to enable a CAB which operates a management system in accordance with ISO 9001 to use that management system to achieve the same result as they would by implementing the ISO 17xxx management system. NAB must check that during its assessments.
- EA GA acting upon recommendation from the Inspection Committee, adopts ILAC P15:06/2014 - Application of ISO/IEC 17020:2012 for the Accreditation of Inspection Bodies, as a mandatory document for all EA Members (despite the fact that clause 8.1.3 in the standard ISO/IEC 17020:2012 is still not interpreted satisfactorily)
- EA GA, acting upon recommendation of the Certification Committee, agrees that the EA CC starts a new work item to revise EA-6/03 M 2013: EA Document for Recognition of Verifiers under the EU ETS Directive
- EA GA, acting upon recommendation from the Certification Committee, adopts:
• IAF MD 8:2015 - Application of ISO/IEC 17011:2004 in the Field of Medical Device Quality Management Systems (ISO 13485);
• IAF MD 9:2015 - Application of ISO/IEC 17021 in the Field of Medical Device Quality Management Systems (ISO 13485);
• IAF MD 13:2014 version 2 - Knowledge Requirements for Accreditation Body Personnel for Information Security Management Systems (ISO/IEC 27001);
• IAF MD 16:2014 version 2 - Application of ISO/IEC 17011 for the Accreditation of Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) Certification Bodies;
• IAF MD 17:2015 version 2 - Witnessing Activities for the Accreditation of Management Systems Certification Bodies;
• IAF MD 18:2015 version 2 - Application of ISO/IEC 17021:2011 in the Service Management Sector(ISO/IEC 20000-1);
as mandatory documents for all EA members.
- EA GA acting upon recommendation from the Certification Committee, endorses that IAF MD2:2007 - Transfer of Accredited Certification of Management Systems shall be applied to all management systems under the EA MLA and not only to QMS and EMS (current IAF MLA sub-scopes).
Milica Lukešević, ATS Acting Director, and Goran Džafić PhD, ATS Deputy Director, attended the 35th EA GA meeting on behalf of ATS.