On behalf of EUROLAB we would like to thank Marc Mortureux, who was appointed new director of the French Pasteur Institute and thus had to resign as EUROLAB presiden, for his contributions, dedicated support and personal input to EUROLAB.

Farewell from the EUROLAB Secretariat at BAM:
Dear EUROLAB members,

We wish you a happy and prosperous year 2006 and take this opportunity to inform you that the EUROLAB Secretariat was officially moved from Germany to France at the beginning of 2006, although there will still be a transition phase which will be finally completed after the EUROLAB General Assembly in May 2006.

Once again we would like to express our sincere thanks to all who have supported us in our work in the past years and in our intentions to serve our members in an effective and reliable way. Let us reassure you and the new French secretariat that we will always be ready to provide guidance and support, if so required, and some members of our team will also in future continue to support the EUROLAB community by co-operating in technical committees and working groups.

The Secretariat will be taken over by Jean-Marc Aublant and his co-workers of LNE, France. The new contact details of the secretariat are:

EUROLAB eurolab@lne.fr
1, rue Gaston Boissier
75724 Paris Cedex 15 – France ;
Jean-Marc.Aublant@lne.fr tel: +33.1.40.43.39.23 and
Sylvie.Leroy@lne.fr tel: +33.1.40.43.39.45 ; fax:+33.1.40.43.37.37

We would like to make a plea for your continued involvement and co-operation with the new French EUROLAB team and would also like to take this opportunity to urge you to co-operate actively state your opinions and expectations to help the new Secretariat cope with the challenges facing the laboratory community in the coming years.

Thanking you again for the confidence you have shown to us in the past years we send our best regards,

Manfred, Anita, Ingrid, Roswitha and Angela
From the former EUROLAB Technical Secretariat"

Workshop “Regulation and standard requirements for conformity assessment of products, services and processes”, 20th October 2005, Paris
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 conformity assessment under the European directives.

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.

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.

Reference to ISO 9001 on accreditation certificates - IAF-ILAC-ISO Communiqué
The Communique of ISO, ILAC and IAF describing the relation between the quality management system required by ISO 17025 and its relation to ISO 9001 has beensigned. It gives accredited laboratories the opportunity to inform their customers, that their QM-system also fulfils the principles of ISO 9001:2000.

Comments to the documents are prepared by the EUROLAB/CEOC Joint Committee for Product Testing and Certification. Your comments are welcome!

ENeCal Network
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ACOUSTILAB NET
EUROLAB SPAIN has created the Acoustics Laboratories Network “ACOUSTILAB” .
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