As a result of the IAF and ILAC ballots on the outcome of the joint IAF/ILAC evaluation of EA, the IAF MLA Committee and the ILAC Arrangement Council have adopted their respective recommendations for the recognition of the EA MLA to the IAF MLA and ILAC MRA.

International Accreditation Forum (IAF)

Further to the IAF MLA 30-day ballot circulated to all IAF Members until 20 October 2016, the following recommendations have been agreed to by the members of the IAF MLA (Multilateral Agreement) Committee:

– EA continues to be recognised as an IAF Regional Group for recognition of accredited QMS, EMS and Product Certification Bodies;

– EA continues be recognised as an IAF Regional Group for recognition of accredited conformity assessment bodies for person certification.

International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC)

As a result of the ILAC Arrangement Council ballot carried out from 19 September to 18 October 2016, the ILAC Arrangement Management Committee have recommended that:

– EA continues to be recognised as a regional cooperation body of ILAC;

– in particular, the recognition of the EA MLA for the accreditation of calibration and testing (ISO/IEC 17025) and medical (ISO 15189) laboratories, and inspection bodies (ISO/IEC 17020), should also be continued.

Both IAF and ILAC have recommended that the next re-evaluation of EA begins no later than July 2018.

In the meanwhile, EA’s applications for extending the scope of EA as a recognized region for the scopes “Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Validation and Verification – ISO 14065” and “Proficiency Testing – ISO/IEC 17043” will be respectively peer-evaluated by IAF and ILAC in 2017.