A conference entitled „Accreditation – A Tool Supporting Regulators” was organized by Polish Centre for Accreditation (PCA) on 15 November 2016 in Warsaw, Poland.
The conference was devoted to broader description of the role which accreditation has to play in supporting regulators on national and international level. The purpose was to prove that accreditation is a tool whose main goal is to help authorities in implementation of their public policy.
Lucyna Olborska, Director of Polish Centre for Accreditation, underlined that PCA’s mission is to perform its activities in order to support the economic development of the country through removing technical barriers to trade, while assuring at the same time protection of public interests such as health, safety or environmental protection. She also explained the use of accreditation in assuring reliable conformity assessment results on the level of trade agreements (e.g. CETA), as well as the mission and tasks of EA, and its cooperation with the European Railway Agency (ERA) and the European Commission in relation to harmonization accreditation activities in the regulated area, such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Environmental Technology Verification (ETV), Accreditation for Notification (AfN), Breast Cancer Project.
Further presentations referred to legal basis and rules of using accreditation in the regulated areas, the benefits for regulators and business coming from accreditation, as well as examples of using the accreditation in regulatory field: for notification purpose in the area of directives on pressure equipment and simple pressure vessels, accreditation of testing of electromagnetic field in general environment as well as accreditation of organic farming.
The conference was mainly attended by directors and heads of regulatory authorities and governmental offices, representatives of top management of accredited conformity assessment bodies as well as employees of Polish Centre for Accreditation; nearly 200 persons attended the conference.
The event was organized on the occasion of PCA’s 15th anniversary and the World Accreditation Day to promote the knowledge on the role and meaning of accreditation for ensuring the free movement of goods and services between countries.