Report from 7th meeting of EA HHC (Horizontal Harmonisation Committee)

6-7 March in Brussels

The 7th meeting of the HHC was held in March in Brussels. EUROLAB, CEOC and WELMEC were the participants. Below are some of the points from the agenda commented.

5.1Multisite accreditation, annex to EA 2/13 (EA Cross Frontier Policy for Cooperation

between EA Members)

There is a draft document which mainly aims at the cross frontier multisite accreditation. A new draft will be prepared and sent to the committee no later than 1st June

5.2Surveillance of subcontractors of CAB, Revision of EA-3/09

A draft was presented. The following was decided:

-Whenever accreditation is mentioned it means accreditation of signatory to the EA, IAF or ILAC MLA.

A new draft will be sent to the committee no later than 1st June.

5.3Suspension of accreditation, results of a survey among the members

Most ABs can act concerning suspension without any delay. There are problems in connection with national legislation in some countries. There will not be an additional EA document about this issue. The issue will be further discussed during a mini workshop in connection with the next meeting. For that workshop a background paper will be developed.

5.4Final version of EA-2/13

The EA-2/13 is now finished and will be sent to EA membership for voting. CEOC pointed out that the requirements in the document are very demanding and therefore few organisations will go for cross border accreditation. The importance to have the Commission’s support for the document was stressed and EA shall approach the Commission in this issue.

Austria rejected the document and Germany reported that there are in some cases requirements that assessors should be qualified in the German system.

7.Assessment of NBs and harmonized implementation of EA-2/17 (EA Guidance on the horizontal requirements for the accreditation of conformity assessment bodies for notification purposes)

There will be a workshop 6 and 7th June where implementation of EA-2/17 and EA-2/13 will be discussed. Other issues on the workshop are: the “1+” approach, the use of the work of directive networks, communication with notifying authorities concerning correlation between scope of accreditation and scope notification, flexible scope in notification and in which directives are Abs active.

HHC will send out information to the EA membership concerning the use of EA-2/17.

9.Sector schemes

The document EA-2/11 (EA Policy for Conformity Assessment Schemes (Sector Schemes)) was approved by the EA membership. The document will however be revised when a revised EA-1/06 (EA MLA) is published.

10.Documents under HHC responsibility

Requirements in EA-2/02 will be moved to EA MLA.

A draft of a revised EA-1/06 will be distributed in HHC before the next meeting.

Resolutions from HHC to the EA GA

1)EA-2/11 shall be revised as soon as EA.1/06 has been finalized.

2)EAGA resolves that activities of EA members ABs which are accreditation shall be performed according to the full set of requirement of ISO 17011 and the international standards identified as standards to which accreditation can be performed and which are or can become level 3 standards in the EA MLA

3)A revision of EA-2/17 shall start in 2013 taking into account the use of the document during the past years.

12.Next meeting

The next meeting is scheduled for October 2nd and 3rd.

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