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MERRY CHRISTMAS |
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ELECTRONIC NEWSLETTER |
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Our newsletter is intended as a platform for an exchange of
information for all EUROLAB members. It aims at providing news on
developments within the European laboratory community, their interaction with
partner organisations (and other so-called “stakeholders"), on
recent activities of EUROLAB as well as on relevant technical and political
documents. We would like to invite you, especially the national secretariats,
to contribute any useful information important for all of us. |
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Dear EUROLAB members, Looking back on the outgoing year 2005, EUROLAB has again proven to
successfully represent the interests of the European laboratory community as
the European federation of national associations of measurement, testing and
analytical laboratories. One of the highlights in 2005 certainly was the workshop on
“Regulation and standard requirements for conformity assessment of
products, services and processes”, held on During our General Assembly in The year 2005 has also brought some personal changes. As Marc
Mortureux was appointed new director of the French Pasteur Institute from
December 2005, he had to leave LNE and thus had to resign as EUROLAB president. On behalf of EUROLAB we would like to thank Marc Mortureux for his
contributions, dedicated support and personal input to EUROLAB. I wish EUROLAB and all its members all the best for
the future, a peaceful Christmas time and a Happy New Year 2006. Bent Larsen
The EUROLAB Board of Administrators (BoA) met on 8 December and agreed
that after the resigning of Marc Mortureux as EUROLAB President, Bent Larsen,
until now Vice-President, will take over the tasks as acting EUROLAB
President until the next elections taking place at the coming EUROLAB General
Assembly on Even though the presidency of
EUROLAB will not remain at LNE, the Technical Secretariat will still be
shifted to LNE with Jean-Marc Aublant as new secretary from January 2006.
Workshop “Regulation and
standard requirements for conformity assessment of products, services and
processes”, Under the title “Regulation and standard requirements for
conformity assessment of products, services and processes”, a joint
EUROLAB, EA and Eurachem workshop was organised by EUROLAB-France, which was
attended by 230 participants. The two major topics were: –
Revision of the New
Approach and CE marking and –
Conformity
Assessment and international trade. Jacques McMillan from the European Commission, reported on the status
of the revision of the New Approach. He stressed the importance of an
improved and harmonised notification process. Preferably accreditation and
the European accreditation structure should be used for assessment and
surveillance of the competence of the bodies notified to carry out
confoermity assessment under the European directives. In order for
accreditation to be recognised as a “public authority activity”
and to be the highest level of assessment, there needs to be a monopoly
status for national accreditation bodies. Furthermore he stressed the need of
an enhanced and improved market surveillance as a task of the individual
member states. There was a round table discussion with representatives from
industry, consumers and conformity assessment bodies, who largely agreed with
the proposals. However, in order to balance the lack of competition in the
field of accreditation stakeholders are asking for an effective appeals
procedure. With a view to Conformity Assessment and international trade Alan
Bryden, Secretary General of ISO, reported on the coherence of the new
standardisation system at the international level and connection between
accreditation and certification. Daniel Pierre, ILAC chairman, addressed the
recognition of test reports and certificates at the international level
pointing at progress and difficulties, e.g. within the possible new role of
EA in the European legally regulated area in the future. In a round table discussion on the progress and difficulties
encountered by industries and accredited bodies, the cooperation of
manufacturer and third party conformity assessment body as well of the
differences between self-declaration and third party assessment were
discussed. Status of the documents
on the Review of the New Approach: EUROLAB commenting |
During the National Members Meeting
in Paris Marc Mortureux informed EUROLAB that he will have to resign as
EUROLAB President
Bent Larsen
(right), Force Denmark ,and Guy Jacques (left), AIB-Vincotte, Belgium are new
acting EUROLAB President and Vice-President |
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Round table discussion on the
Review of the New Approach |
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The revision of the New Approach
was launched in 2003 with a Communication to the European Council followed by
a Council Resolution. Currently the European Commission is preparing a
document on the proposals for a revision. The SOGS (Senior Officials Group
for Standardisation and Conformity Assessment Policy) consisting of members
from the European Commission and of representatives from the European member
states has been discussing the individual elements in 15 separate CERTIF
documents. In December 2005, the first
version of a consolidated paper from the single elements was released. (CERTIF/16). This paper will be the basis for the final proposal of changes to
the Review of the New Approach. Especially the proposed amendments of the
Modules and the newly formulated essential requirements will have an impact
on the notified bodies. It is therefore important that EUROLAB will voice the
position of the third parties at this stage. Within EUROLAB the developments
concerning the review of the New Approach are mainly followed in the
EUROLAB/CEOC Joint Technical Committee on Product Testing and Certification
(JTC PTC) with their chairman Guy Jacques, who is very active in this issue.
So far three rounds of comments have been submitted to the European
Commission on the different SOGS papers. The expected timeframe is that the consolidated paper produced
hopefully by consensus of the SOGS will be presented to the Commission early
2006 and that a final paper by the Commission will be forwarded to the
European Council in the middle of 2006, possibly for approval by the European
Council and the Parliament in 2007/2008. |
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European
Conference on the 20th Anniversary of the New Approach, |
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About 500 participants attended the Conference “NEW APPROACH: A
case of Better Regulation at the service of European Competitiveness’
on 30 November 2005 in Brussels, which was organised by DG Enterprise.
EUROLAB was represented by Marc Mortureux who had been asked to give a
presentation on the views and experiences from third parties, which is a
clear sign of visibility of EUROLAB to the European Commission. Also Guy
Jacques, chairman of the JTC PTC attended as well as a number of members also
participating in the JTC PTC. The main tenor expressed by all parties involved was that the New
Approach (NA) is a success and that a revision of some aspects is worthwhile.
All parties agreed on the need for improvement of market surveillance and a
harmonised and efficient notification process, however concerning CE marking
views were controversial. In an
interesting talk Paolo Cecchini – now retired former member of the
European Commission recalled and vividly illustrated the beginning of the New
Approach consultations. He came back to the difficult discussions between the
member states in 1984 including secret meetings outside The role and experience of the third parties was addressed by Marc
Mortureux, President of EUROLAB. He stressed the success of the NA from the
third parties’ point of view because of the higher level of consumer
protection that was achieved and pointed to the many third countries having
adopted its principles. He emphasised the importance of the role of independent
third parties as "competence provider" acting as intersection
between the industry, the standardisation bodies and the public authorities.
Issues that will need to be improved are well-defined roles of authorities,
notified bodies and accreditation bodies, a real and efficient control of the
notified bodies, public appointment of the accreditation bodies, market
control. He stressed the importance of private marks to support the consumers
in their decisions. Concerning globalisation the NA regulation must also
strictly be applied and controlled for products from outside of In his closing speech Günter Verheugen (Vice-President of the European
Commission) called the revision of the NA the flagship of EC’s better
regulation activities. He referred to the aim not to create a new layer of
requirements but to make the system work better and to extend the NA to as
many sectors as possible (e.g. cosmetics, emissions, services) in full
compliance with the better regulation principle. |
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The EUROLAB National Members’ Meeting took place on -
Results of the
workshop and EUROLAB’s position and input to the Revision of the New
Approach -
Accreditation with
flexible scope Concerning the latter a workshop “Does innovative industry
require flexible laboratory services?” is planned for Some further topics were: -
the implementation
of the new ISO/IEC 17025:2005 requirements -
the draft EUROLAB
Technical Report on Measurement Uncertainty for the experienced -
the Computer
guideline for laboratory work within ISO 17025 of which the first draft is
now discussed in the EUROLAB Technical Committee for Quality Assurance (TCQA) -
a
“cookbook” for laboratory questions in the accreditation
assessment is worked out by TCQA, e.g. concerning requirements for
participation in proficiency tests and concerning interpretation of the
results -
financing and
promotion of the EPTIS database for proficiency tests -
EUROLAB General
Assembly:
CROLAB’s 1st
International Conference on Laboratory Competence On 3 – 5 November 2005 CROLAB organised, under the auspices of
EUROLAB, its first International Conference on Laboratory Competence in CROLAB
is now also full member of EURACHEM and during the conference a Memorandum of
Understanding (MoU) was signed by Wolfhard Wegscheider, the EURACHEM
chairman, and Vjera Krstelj on behalf of CROLAB. NCSLI 2005 Workshop & Symposium Horst Czichos attended
the NCSLI Board of Directors (BOD) Meeting and the NCSLI 2005 Workshop &
Symposium “Advances in Science and Technology –
Their Impact on Metrology” in |
Beautiful Cavtat |
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EUROLAB-Germany Founding of
Measurement Uncertainty Circles In June 2005 EUROLAB Germany organised a workshop on measurement
uncertainty for the level of laboratory staff. The aim was to set up
uncertainty circles as self-help groups to discuss real examples and problems
from daily practice in laboratories. As a result an uncertainty circle was
set up in the field of microbiology, which had its first meeting in November
2005. Examples to be discussed will be the determination of e-Coli bacteria
with the most probable number (MPN) and the plating methods. A major German
PT provider is participating and offered to use the data of a coming PT
round. In order to obtain a high number of statistical data the PT was
offered at half the price for members of EUROLAB-Germany. Also in the field of analytical food chemistry an uncertainty circle
is being set up as well as a circle for beginners in general. FRPM’05 - 10th European Conference on Fire Retardant Polymers From 7 to 9 September 2005 the most
important European conference focussing on fire-retardant polymers, the
"10th European Meeting on Fire Retardancy and Protection of
Materials“ FRPM ’05 took place in Berlin. This conference was
organised by the Working Group “Resistance of polymers“ headed by
Dr. B. Schartel of the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing
(BAM), in co-operation with EUROLAB. This
conference which attracted 200 participants from 24 nations, among them 57%
from industrial companies, was a really international event. The conference
programme including 43 lectures was supplemented by 35 poster presentations
and provided a unique forum for the exchange of fundamental and applied
research results between representatives of industry and academia.
Nanocomposites as well as phosphorous-based fire retardants were the main
conference themes. In addition, fundamental aspects of the fire behaviour and
fire-retardant mechanisms, the flame protection of textiles, new test methods,
intumescent systems, standardisation and regulations as well as environmental
aspects were also discussed. Highlights were not only the interesting and
diversified presentations of eminent and renowned experts but also the
organisation of the evening events. The poster session where mainly junior
scientists presented their ideas and results was accompanied by a rich buffet
at the Bornstedt Crown Estate in |
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EUROLAB Acoustics Laboratories Network “ACOUSTILAB” EUROLAB Spain has created the Acoustic Laboratories Network
“ACUSTILAB”, like a Network of Laboratories specialized in
acoustics which are interested in collaborating with other laboratories in
the same field. This Network is aimed at public and private laboratories which work in
the area of acoustics. Due to different organization reasons, at first the
Network had been constituted by the Laboratories that form the EUROLAB Spain
Acoustics Work Group. Later, it will be possible to invite other prestigious
national and international laboratories (from All Network members will be included in a public list that will
contain their names, contact persons, mail directions, telephone numbers,
e-mails and activities related to the Network. All the Laboratories are accredited by ENAC (Accreditation National
Body of Spain) and belong to EUROLAB. These requirements are aimed at
ensuring the qualification and the specialization of the laboratory members
of the Network. The objectives of the ACUSTILAB Network are the following: -
To make up a
communication platform with other laboratories and International Networks
(European, Latin American, etc...) -
To look for
subsidies and collaborations with civil services. -
To establish a
service database. -
To facilitate the
collaboration between members in order to develop inter-comparisons. -
To create discussion
forums on the Net to solve typical problems. - Etc... |
“ACOUSTILAB” Acoustics Laboratories Network |
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EUROLAB-Cz EUROLAB-Cz of the |
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