Curt-Peter Askolin from SWEDAC, the Swedish NAB, will be the new EA contact person for ERA succeeding to Susana Huerta from ENAC, the Spanish NAB.
The European Union Agency for Railways has been established to provide the EU Member States and the Commission with technical assistance in the fields of railway safety and interoperability. This involves the development and implementation of Technical Specifications for Interoperability and a common approach to questions concerning railway safety.
EA has been cooperating with the European Union Agency for Railways to improve, among other things, the consistent assessment of conformity assessment bodies regarding the Interoperability Directive (IOD). The main objective was to develop a detailed set of requirements, in particular the technical requirements, needed to be fulfilled by notified bodies in order to improve and harmonize the general level of performance of EU notified bodies under Directive 2008/57/EC and to increase trust in the work performed by notified bodies. As a result of a fruitful cooperation, the General Assembly, acting upon the recommendation of the Horizontal Harmonisation Committee, endorsed in November 2017 the mandatory application of the ERA Technical Document (MNB – Assessment scheme 000MRA1044 ver.1.1) Requirements for CABs seeking Notification as MLA Level 4 document for all EA members.
Due to his significant experience as a member of the ERA ad hoc TFG, Curt-Peter has been proposed to become the new EA contact person for ERA; Curt-Peter is also responsible in SWEDAC for the railway sector laboratories, ECM (Entities in Charge of Maintenance according to regulation (EU) no 445/2011), CSM RA (a common safety method for Railways according to regulation (EU) 402/2013) and Notified Bodies for IOD.
Curt-Peter Askolin has worked as a lead assessor since 1999 at SWEDAC and has also been involved in assessor training/technical assistance internationally as a trainer in many countries worldwide.