47th EA MAC held in Torino

The EA Multilateral Agreement (EA MAC) Council has just held its 47th meeting on 4-5th October 2022.

The EA MAC is a Council which manages peer-evaluation process and decides on the EA MLA signatory status of the national accreditation bodies (NABs).

62 participants attended the EA MAC meeting, including one EA Advisory Board representative and members from 34 National Accreditation Bodies (NABs). 

On behalf of the Accreditation Body of Serbia (ATS), MSc Dragan Pušara was present as the ATS Acting Director. 

At the MAC meeting, decisions were made on the statuses of EA MLA agreements of individual EA members, participants were introduced to new EA documents, and changes in individual NABs were officially confirmed. One of the changes that was confirmed was the change of leadership in ATS through a positive evaluation of the competencies of the new director, MSc Dragan Pušara.

At the meeting the MAC took the following decisions:

• The National Accreditation Body of Iceland (ISAC), becomes a EA MLA signatory in the field of Inspection.
• The National Accreditation Body of Cyprus (CYS-CYSAB) remains a EA MLA signatory in the field of Calibration, Testing, including Medical Examinations.

Members of the EA MAC confirmed that peer evaluation in the fields of Inspection and Product Certification shall be performed on-site within the next four months at the latest. The EA MAC will decide on these two fields based on the results of this peer evaluation. The EA MAC decided that a full re-evaluation is to be performed within two years from the last day of the re-evaluation (October 2023).
•    The National Accreditation Body of Sweden (SWEDAC), remains an EA MLA signatory in the field of Calibration, Testing, including Medical Examinations, Inspection, Certification of Management Systems, Certification of Products, Certification of Persons, Validation and Verification and Proficiency Testing Providers.

Participants of the EA MAC decided that a witness is to be performed within one zear from the date of the MAC decision in the field of Proficiency Testing Provideras to be in line with the EA MAC Policy and procedure for remote peer evaluations during the COVID-19 pandemic. The MAC will review the results of the witness. 

The next full re-evaluation shall be in November 2024. Due to the lifting of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions, the EA MAC decided that starting the 1st of January 2023, all the peer evaluations will be carried out on-site.

The EA MAC reconfirmed NAAU’s EA MLA signatory status and will carry out the re-evaluation of NAB remotely as originally planned in May 2023.
•    EA MAC endorsed the new document EA-2/02 S3 M (Risk-based approach for the planning of a peer evaluation). The mentioned document shall be submitted to the EA General Assembly for approval. The EA MAC agreed on the implementation of EA-2/02 S3 M as of 1st January 2023 for the peer evaluations planned in 2024.

Team Leaders (TLs) will be trained on the application of the document, and the MAC Management Group will be involved in the review of the outcome of the risk-based approach in order to harmonize approach in the implementation of the document. 

• The EA MAC approved the revision of EA-2/02 S4 (G) to make it applicable to other extraordinary circumstances. .
• The peer evaluation in the field of validation and verification against EN ISO/IEC 17029 will start on the 5th October 2022.

The EA MAC decided to launch the EA MLA Validation and Verification bodies (EN ISO/IEC 17029) based on at least one successful transition to TOU EN ISO/IEC 17029 standard (Level 3), and declared by a NAB, and EN ISO 14065:2020 (level 4) or at least one successful peer evaluation of a national accreditation body (NAB) against EN ISO/IEC 17029. The first signatories are ENAC, the Spanish NAB, and TURKAK, the Turkish NAB.

In case of transition, the EA MLA Ssignatory status for the validation and verification of the NAB will be updated by the Secretariat to include EN ISO/IEC 17029, based on the information provided by the NAB that has issued accreditation to EN ISO/IEC 17029 and EN ISO 14065:2020.

It has been confirmed that the host of the next EA MAC will be ATS, in Belgrade, in April 2023.

Sincerely,

Your ATS