The last EA General Assembly took place on 20-21 November 2013 in Oslo, Norway. About one hundred participants attended the event which gathered not only the full and associate EA-member national accreditation bodies (NABs), but also representatives of the European Commission, EFTA, EA-recognized stakeholders and regional cooperation associations.
It was positively greeted that, as a result of the decisions made at the EA Multilateral Agreement Council (MAC) meeting held on 2-3 October 2013, the Romanian NAB (RENAR) has been accepted to join the EA MLA as a signatory for two other activities, i.e. inspection and personnel certification – RENAR having now signed for all accreditation scopes covered by the EA MLA.
Another noteworthy decision lies in the EA Resolution 2013 (32) 15 adopted in November stating that: The General Assembly, acting on recommendation from the Certification Committee and the GHG Working Group, resolves that the transition from EN ISO 14065:2012 (ISO 14065:2007) to EN ISO 14065:2013 (ISO 14065:2013) can be made on an administrative basis. It is further noted that according to the Commission communication 2013/C 258/05 (list of harmonized standards), the presumption of conformity with the previous version ended on 31-10-2013.
Time was allocated to a successful breakout session for discussing EA’s strategy for contributing to ILAC/IAF work. A presentation was made by the delegate from the Austrian NAB (AA). His view was that the aim should be for EA to reinforce its presence at the international level and to secure consolidated EA positions, when they can be achieved. The EA Chair thanked AA for their initiative and the meeting for open and fruitful preliminary discussions. He invited EA Members to send any additional views which would feed in the Executive strategic discussions planned to take place in January 2014.
Finally, the EA Chair recalled that the current Framework Partnership Agreement (FPA) with the European Commission (EC) and EFTA will be terminated at the end of 2013. A new agreement is being negotiated based on an EA Action Plan for 2014-2017 outlining EA’s ambitions for the period to be supported by the next FPA. The decision-making process at the EC level is not closed and it
was not yet known by end of November how much the financial support to EA will amount to for 2014-2017. The EC representative confirmed however that the process is underway and should soon be completed. EA was pleased to hear the EC say it since EA’s cooperation activities with the EC will be going on increasing when several projects will be confirmed or further developed together with DGs ENTERPRISE, CLIMA and SANCO.