The EA Membership is just about to be increased!

At its last meeting on 17-19 April 2012, the EA MAC recommended that ATS, the Serbian NAB, becomes an EA Full Member.
 
The EA MAC also recommended that JISMO and SEMAC, the Jordanian and Moroccan NABs respectively, become EA Associate Members.
 
After consideration by the Executive Committee, these positive recommendations should be endorsed at the next EA General Assembly on 23-24 May 2012.

2 new EA MLA signatories

ATS (Serbia) will become an EA MLA signatory in the fields of calibration, testing, inspection and certification of products, once ATS’ Full Membership is endorsed by the EA General Assembly in May 2012.
 
IARM (FYROM) has become an EA MLA signatory in the fields of calibration, testing, inspection and certification of products.

3 NABs have signed for extending their accreditation fields covered by the EA MLA

NAB-MALTA and OLAS (Luxembourg) have now signed the EA MLA for calibration.
 
NAAU (Ukraine) has become an EA Bilateral signatory in the fields of calibration, testing and certification of management systems as well.

EA publications re-organised

EA-1/01: List of EA Publications has been thoroughly revised, introducing the revised categorisation of EA documents adopted by the EA General Assembly in 2009. The reference number of the document has been accordingly changed into EA-INF/01.
 
Further to the adoption of the list of international documents applicable to EA, EA Members and accredited CABs by the EA General Assembly in November 2011, all international documents adopted by EA have also been included into a specific section of the document.
 
The new List of EA Publications should be made available on the EA website as well, through the above-accessible Publications webpage.

Communication key to EA future development

In order to meet the stretching demands that Regulation (EC) 765/2008 places on EA as an organisation, EA has set out a series of Strategic Objectives for 2010-2015 approved by the EA General Assembly in May 2011. This work will see accreditation becoming more responsive to market needs through, in particular, forging closer relationships with key regulatory, technical and business stakeholders. EA will also be seeking to build on best management practice to evolve the professional culture of the organisation in order to face the challenges of its new role. This will be supported notably by tapping into and sharing the experience and knowledge base within the European accreditation system.
 
Because effective communication, both internal and external, will play a core role in realising these objectives, an EA Marketing and Communications Plan 2011-2015 has been endorsed by the EA Executive Committee in November 2011. Since its last meeting in March 2012 in London where Graham Talbot, the EA Chairman from UKAS, emphasized the crucial importance of its contribution, the EA Communications and Publications Committee has been now focussing on the implementation of the Plan by agreeing a multi-annual work plan defining responsibilities and timeframes.
 
During the next four years, the EA CPC will strengthen the EA brand to reflect EA’s position as an official European institution.
 
The EA website will be re-developed to enable visitors to access more easily the information they look for, while the intranet will serve as a hub for sharing information and establishing greater dialogue between EA Members.
 
In order to widen EA’s stakeholder base, the CPC will develop a contacts management plan. This will involve confirming current contacts, researching new contacts and gathering local national contacts, as well as setting out an engagement plan.
 
The CPC will be carrying out benchmarking exercises to access EA’s growing knowledge base and current practices, to ensure that best practice is captured and that there is greater consistency between members.

2012 changes in the EA Advisory Board’s membership

Before the renewal of the Board’s whole membership in the second half of 2012, Michael Nitsche as one of the current EAAB Vice-Chairs, accepted to chair the EAAB meeting on 26 April 2012 on an interim basis.
 
The 26 April meeting marks the last participation of Jacques McMillan from the EC DG Entreprise and Industry before retirement (the EC is being represented on the EAAB by Nike Bönnen), as well as the first attendance of Margrethe Asserson from the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) to replace Tore Nyvold Thomassen.

EU Emission Trading System (ETS) - Objective 1 January 2013

In May 2011, EA proposed the first draft of a road map for the introduction of accreditation of verification bodies under ISO 14065 into the EA MLA. The General Assembly already resolved that a new activity called “Verification” is defined at level 2 of the MLA, and that this activity is based upon ISO 14065 for environmental verifiers, thus defining ISO 14065 as the level 3 standard under the activity “Verification”. A 2-session training event on ISO 14065:2007 and EU ETS Verification Requirements including aspects of the EA peer-evaluation process was also organized in September 2011 in Bern, Switzerland.
 
In December 2011, Monitoring & Reporting (M&R) and Accreditation & Verification (A&V) Regulations have been adopted by the EC Climate Change Committee; they are expected to be approved by the European Parliament and Council by May 2012. Both regulations shall apply as from 1 January 2013.
 
In February 2012, a Working Group for Accreditation of GHG Verifiers has been set up within the Certification Committee to meet the EC’s expectation to have a formal network established between EA ABs so as to improve European harmonization of accreditation in the field of greenhouse gas emissions.
 
The EA General Assembly in May 2012 should endorse the CC new work item to revise EA-6/03: EA Document for Recognition of Verifiers under the EU ETS Directive in accordance with the published version of the A&V Regulation. This revision will be one of the first tasks of CC WG for Accreditation of GHG Verifiers.
 
The next EA GA should also approve the evaluation process proposed and endorsed by the EA MAC at its meeting on 17-19 April 2012.