Highlights of the 46th EA General Assembly – 25-26 November 2020 – Part I

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 46th European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) General Assembly (GA) on 25th-26th November 2020 took place entirely online.

The General Assembly gathered over 80 participants from 50 National Accreditation Bodies (NABs), the EU Commission, EFTA, Recognized Stakeholders, and the EA Advisory Board through participation of its Chairperson.

EA Management structure

One of the major issues of the General Assembly was the setting up of the new EA management structure. After approval of the revised Rules of Procedures in June 2020, the GA was invited to adopt the revised Articles of Association, a necessary step for the new management structure to be able to start operating on the 1st January 2021.

The new management structure is based on the establishment of the Executive Board and the Technical Management Board.

The EX Board shall be composed of the President, Vice-President and four members. Its task is to implement EA governance and financial policies, and to manage the organisation (including financial management) between the meetings of the General Assembly and as directed by the General Assembly.

Members of the Executive Board

EA President: Maureen Logghe, BELAC, Belgium

EA Vice-President: Cecilie Laake, NA, Norway

Leopoldo Cortez, IPAC, Portugal

Adrienne Duff, INAB, Ireland

Roeland Nieuweboer, RvA, The Netherlands

Emanuele Riva, ACCREDIA, Italy

The Technical Management Board (TMB) shall be composed of the Chairs of the Technical Committees, the EA Vice-President, the Chairs of the Multilateral Agreement Council (MAC) and the Communications and Publications Committee (CPC). Its mission is to coordinate the technical activities of EA. The EA Vice-President acts as the TMB Chairman.

Members of the Technical Management Board

Multilateral Agreement Council Chair: Maria Papatzikou, ESYD, Greece

Horizontal Harmonization Committee Chair: Gabriel Zrenner, DAkkS, Germany

Laboratory Committee Chair: Laurent Vinson, COFRAC, France

Certification Committee Chair: Kevin Belson, UKAS, UK

Inspection Committee Chair: Orbay Evrensevdi, TURKAK, Turkey

Communications & Publications Committee Chair: Lucyna Olborska, PCA, Poland

The Executive Board and Technical Management Board members have been elected for a two-year mandate starting on 1 January 2021.

The General Assembly paid a glowing tribute to the leaving members of the EA Executive Committee:

  • Ignacio Pina (ENAC, Spain) who has been vice-chairing and chairing EA since, January 2018 and May 2018 after 4 years as Chair of HHC and previously Convenor of CC WG Food for 9 years;
  • Paulo Tavares (IPAC, Portugal) who has been chairing the Multilateral Agreement Council since January 2016;
  • and Ed Wieles (RvA, The Netherlands) who has been an additional member of the Executive Committee since January 2018 after spending 7 years as Convenor of the MAC WG training.

The General Assembly paid also glowing tribute to JiřÌ Růžička (CAI, Czech Republic) and Martin Sencák (SNAS, Slovakia), who have been seating on the Executive Committee as additional members for several years.

 

BREXIT

UKAS, the National Accreditation Body (NAB) of the United Kingdom, is a member of EA and a signatory to the EA Multilateral Agreement (MLA). With the withdrawal of the UK from the European Union, UKAS will no longer meet the EA membership criteria as they will not be anymore a NAB in a Member State or candidate country to the EU.

EA members have expressed the importance of having UKAS as member, even after UK left the EU. Accordingly, EA has revised its Articles of Association and introduced the option of a transition period, which allows UKAS to maintain its membership until 31 January 2022.

During this transition period EA is analysing together with UKAS and the European Commission the results of the negotiations between the EU and the UK. The objective is to consider options for EA membership criteria to be introduced in the EA Articles of Association with the aim that UKAS remains an EA member.

At the November 2020 General Assembly meeting there were extensive discussions about the future membership status of UKAS. It was emphasized that any decision should be made only when the negotiations between the EU and UK have been concluded, because the result may have an impact on the future membership (category) status of UKAS in EA.

It is expected that the result of the negotiation will be available in December 2020.

Hence the General Assembly agreed to hold an extraordinary meeting beginning of 2021 and to continue with the discussions on UKAS’ membership status. The final decision on UKAS status in EA shall be made in Summer 2021.

 

Carbon Footprint

The European Commission declared to become the world’s first climate-neutral continent by 2050. To achieve this, the European Commission presented the European Green Deal, the most ambitious package of measures that should enable European citizens and businesses to benefit from sustainable green transition.

Can EA contribute to the Green Deal in practice and what could be the measures by EA for reducing its carbon footprint?

The Executive Committee prepared a discussion paper on EA travels in relation to Climate Change.

The objective of the proposed measures is to support the Green Deal by

  • reducing the number of Working Group and Task Force Group face-to-face meetings
  • and having every second Committee/Council meetings in central Europe or by remote means.

COVID-19 has highlighted EA’s ability to maintain its activities and develop new ways of working with success.

 

EA MLA Mark

EA decided, following the plan set up in the EA Strategy 2025 to establish an EA MLA Mark as a tool to differentiate the accreditation and corresponding conformity assessment results covered by the EA multilateral agreement of recognition (EA MLA).

The GA agreed to register the mark as a collective mark of the EU in a first stage, and then to extend registration at the international level based on the Madrid agreement.

As part of the registration process, a set of rules for use of the MLA mark must be submitted to the Registration authorities. EA Horizontal Harmonization Committee (HHC) developed EA-3/01: EA Conditions for the use of Accreditation Symbols, Logos and other claims of accreditation and reference to the EA MLA Signatory status, Supplement 1 Rules for use of EA MLA mark which was approved by the General Assembly in October 2020.

Signatory National Accreditation Bodies (NABs) will be entitled to use the MLA mark in combination with their logo and Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) accredited by a signatory NAB will have the right to use the MLA mark in combination with the NAB accreditation symbol.

The basic principle is that the mark can only be used in a country where it has been properly registered. It means that the mark will be registered (at least) in all the countries of the EA MLA/BLA signatories.

The registration process has just started formally and is currently ongoing.

 

It was confirmed that the next 2021 General Assembly will be held remotely on 20-21 May 2021.

All the resolutions adopted at the 46th EA General Assembly are available here.