Lorenzo Thione, former EA Chaiman from 2006 to 2009, passed away on 29 December 2016.

EA is feeling deepest regret about reporting Lorenzo Thione’s sudden death on 29 December 2016 in Italy.

As the former Director of SINCERT, which became the Department of Certification and Inspection in ACCREDIA, the Italian national accreditation body, Lorenzo chaired EA during four years, from 2006 to 2009.

With a wealth of technical expertise and political commitment, Lorenzo significantly contributed to develop EA as the European infrastructure for accreditation. Supported by Graham Talbot, the EA Vice-Chair and the EA Executive Committee, he participated in the discussions on the New Legislative Framework package led by the European Commission and finally signed the General Guidelines for the Cooperation between the European co-operation for Accreditation and the European Commission, the European Free Trade Association and the Competent National Authorities, published on 21 May 2009 in the Official Journal of the European Union.

As the EA Chair, he played a significant part in initiating the discussions on the development of EA’s policy for cross-frontier accreditation and cooperation between EA Members (see Document EA-2/13), as well as EA’s policy for accreditation of flexible scopes (see EA-2/15) together with the EA Vice-Chair.

Under Lorenzo’s chairmanship, EA launched a project aimed at assisting the European Commission in the evaluation of Turkish notified bodies. Moreover, in 2007, the EA Chair contracted with CEN to elaborate a brochure designed to promote the issues and benefits of accreditation among the national authorities of Mediterranean countries.

As of 2006, Lorenzo Thione initiated the discussions with the European Cancer Network, notably with Dr. Brie in the European Parliament, about the development of a project for “Support services regarding the accreditation aspects of the project on a European voluntary Quality Assurance scheme for Breast Cancer Services underpinned by accreditation and high-quality guidelines”. This has now become one major cooperation project between EA and the Joint Research Centre (JRC) of the European Commission.

In May 2006, Lorenzo rallied the EA Membership and Executive Committee around the large EA Development Project 2007-2013, aiming notably at rationalising information and knowledge-base in EA, enhancing the EA peer-evaluation process together with the EA Multilateral Agreement Council, reinforcing the relationships with the European Commission and improving communication with national regulators – which resulted in the successful Best Practice Guide for Communication with Regulators.

Another purpose of this ambitious EA Development Project 2007-2013 was to increase harmonisation of technical assessments between EA-member national accreditation bodies. The achievements made in that respect paved the way for the Accreditation for Notification (AfN) project, whose concluding recommendations have just been adopted at the EA General Assembly in May 2016.

This EA Development Project also allowed the EA Secretariat to be established as a permanent and independent structure in Paris in 2010.

EA should be most grateful to Lorenzo Thione, whose funeral was on 3 January 2017 in Milan, for his greatest involvement and pivotal work for the future of accreditation in Europe and EA.

ACCREDIA, whose sorrow is fully shared by EA, paid a glowing tribute to Lorenzo on their website.