Accreditation of conformity assessment bodies in the European Union

KEY POINTS

National accreditation bodies

• EU Member States must:
  • appoint a single not-for-profit national accreditation organisation;
  • ensure the organisation has sufficient financing and staff to carry out its duties;
  • monitor the organisation to ensure it fulfils the requirements set;
  • communicate the relevant details to the European Commission, which draws up a publicly available list of the various national organisations.
• National accreditation bodies must:
  • determine whether individual conformity assessment organisations² are competent to do their work and monitor their performance;
  • restrict, suspend or withdraw the accreditation certificates of assessment organisations that become unable to carry out their duties;
  • be objective and impartial with efficient management and appropriate internal controls in place;
  • agree to peer evaluation;
  • inform other national accreditation bodies of their conformity assessment activities;
  • make information on their work publicly available.
• The association European co-operation for Accreditation manages the peer evaluations to ensure the quality of the services the national accreditation bodies provide.
• CE marking may only be attached to a product by a manufacturer or someone mandated to operate on their behalf, provided it satisfies all the conformity standards.
• Amending Regulation (EU) 2019/1020 removes the articles in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 that previously dealt with market surveillance aspects (see summary).