EA Members participated in the EA Spring 2025 Technical Committees’ meetings.

Certification Committee (CC)

At the EA Certification Committee (EACC) Meeting on 19-20 March 2025 in Budapest, CC Members participated in a very fruitful workshop on flexible scopes in certification. A flexible scope allows conformity assessment bodies to claim accreditation without prior approval from their National Accreditation Body for conformity assessment activities currently not defined within a fixed scope.

The CC discussed and agreed that the technical area scopes to be at least referenced when scoping for the accreditation of Energy Management Systems certification. Hereof a Technical Management Board resolution should be adopted upon a recommendation by the CC.

Revision of ISO/IEC 17065
The CC also discussed revision of ISO/IEC 17065, especially the fact that “third party certification” will be removed from the whole standard (in accordance with the ISO/CASCO New Working Item Proposal, already adopted, based on the purpose of consistency with the 17000 standard series). A small ad hoc Task Force Group has been set up to influence the ISO/CASCO amendment process of ISO/IEC 17065. CASCO is the ISO committee on conformity assessment.

NoBos monitoring activities
In addition to many discussions on the implementation of other certification standards, a European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) representative delivered a presentation about the monitoring of Notified Bodies (NoBos) activities. The ERA inspection of accredited NoBos should be (very) limited, especially when the compliance with the actual Technical Document Requirements for conformity assessment bodies seeking notification has been demonstrated.

75 representatives from EA NABs and Stakeholders attended the meeting hosted by NAH, the Hungarian NAB.

 

Inspection Committee (IC)

At the EA Inspection Committee Meeting on 18 March 2025 in Budapest (Hungary), IC Members discussed the Draft International Standard version of the new ISO/IEC 17020 – Conformity assessment — Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection.

After further reviewing the EAIC Frequently Asked Questions raised since 2012, they also agreed to publish many other questions from members to be displayed soon on the dedicated FAQs.

The Workshop held on 27 September 2024, dedicated to sampling, proficiency testing, and interlaboratory comparisons, was followed by recapitulative and concluding discussions. It was agreed to launch a survey to define a common approach and to seek cooperation with the EA LC and the ILAC Inspection Committee.

60 EA NABs and Stakeholders representatives attended the meeting hosted by NAH, the Hungarian NAB.

 

Horizontal Harmonisation Committee (HHC)

Almost 70 participants attended the HHC meeting in Brussels, Belgium, on 5-6 March 2025. For the first time, Kristina Hallman (SWEDAC, the Swedish NAB) and Jenni Harjuoja (FINAS, the Finnish NAB) chaired the meeting.

Members discussed, including but not limited to:

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

The HHC discussed the Executive Board recommendation that the HHC should cover in its Work Programme the assessment of Conformity Assessment Bodies using AI and related issues by establishing a specific Working Group.

The HHC is currently revising the following documents:

  • EA-1/22 EA Procedure and Criteria for the Evaluation of Conformity Assessment Schemes by EA Accreditation Body Members;
  • EA-2/17 EA Document on Accreditation for Notification Purposes;
  • EA-1/06 EA multilateral agreement – Criteria for signing – Policy and procedures for development.

The new Technical Network ‘Quality Managers’
The Technical Network will promote effective quality management practices across all NABs, share best practices, and address challenges.

The network is a support platform, enabling NAB’s Quality Managers (QMs) to gather insights from peers holding similar roles. While the group facilitates the exchange of experiences and information, it does not set policy, nor interpret standards, nor provide prescriptive solutions. It will focus on fostering collaborative dialogue and mutual support. Outputs from the TN QM are regarded as informative, and any proposals for guidance or mandatory documents require submission to the HHC for consideration and approval.

 

Laboratory Committee

The Laboratory Committee met on 26-27 March in Bratislava (Slovakia), and LC members confirmed the re-election of Belén VILLAMIEL (ENAC, the Spanish NAB) as LC Vice-Chair (for the term 2025-2026).

New Guidance on assessment of sampling, including stand-alone sampling
EN ISO/IEC 17025 requires laboratories to establish a sampling plan that defines how samples will be collected, identified, and handled. EA organized several workshops to discuss different questions on applying some requirements of the standard of these sampling activities, considering the interaction it has on the tests and calibrations carried out on the sampled items.
From the feedback on the workshop discussions, LC members agreed that it would be beneficial and appropriate to elaborate a guidance document on the assessment of sampling to harmonize the application of the relevant requirements,  including stand-alone sampling.

New Guidance for the Accreditation of Laboratories carrying out Genetic Testing using Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) Techniques
NGS is a massively parallel sequencing technology that offers ultra-high throughput, scalability, and speed. The technology is used to determine the order of nucleotides in entire genomes or targeted regions of DNA or RNA.
The guidance is under development in the LC WG Health Care and aims at providing guidelines to NABs on how to approach the assessment of such laboratories in a harmonized way, and on possible issues which are critical in the assessment of the competency of the laboratories.

Revision of the document EA-4/23 The Assessment and Accreditation of Opinions and Interpretations using EN ISO/IEC 17025
Following the framework of the 5-year systematic review rule, the LC revised the document EA-4/23 on the assessment and accreditation of opinions and interpretations using EN ISO/IEC 17024 to consider:

  • the use of opinions and interpretations by accredited Conformity Assessment Bodies (CABs) that do not carry out the testing themselves;
  • the update and clarification of Annex A examples (i.e., adding examples for other emerging areas as artificial intelligence, fire testing, and forensics);
  • any other need for clarification/update of the document’s content.

The document was endorsed by the LC and published in April 2025.

Revision of the document EA-4/22 EA Guidance on Accreditation of Pesticide Residues Analysis in Food and Feed
Following the review of EA-4/22 by the Technical Network Food and Feed, considering the impact of the new EA-2/15 EA Requirements for the Accreditation of Flexible Scopes (published in November 2023), a revision was initiated to update some references to EA-2/15 and some wording. The document has been sent for comments, with a deadline on the 2nd of June 2025.

This was also the last LC meeting for Rolf Straub (former Inspection Committee Chair and convener of the EA WG Health Care), who will be missed.

Over 70 representatives of National Accreditation Bodies (NABs) and Recognized Stakeholders attended the meeting hosted by SNAS, the Slovakian NAB.