Objective "29 April
2022": At that date, official control laboratories will have to be
accredited to ISO/IEC 17025.
During its 36th
meeting in September 2018, the EA Laboratory Committee (LC) decided to endorse
a revised version of the communiqué published after the signature of the
Recognised Stakeholder agreement signed between EA and EPPO in 2011, which
marked a new step in an active cooperation that had started in 2007.
The
development of robust quality management systems and the provisions for
accreditation are essential for laboratories around the world. Laboratories
performing official diagnostics for regulated pests (insects, diseases etc.)
need to achieve high quality standards because of the impact of their diagnosis
on international trade, on the agricultural sector, and on the environment.
With
the growing need for harmonized practice in that field, EA and EPPO decided to
enhance cooperation between their two organizations.
Laurent
Vinson, EA LC Chair: “EA, the Laboratory Committee and its technical network Food and feed
convened by Ioannis Sitaras (ESYD – Greece) has been
developing strong relationships with stakeholder’s organizations like EPPO over
the years, to allow parties interested in accreditation to put their views
forward to EA. The framework of accreditation in the field of plant health
diagnostic is undergoing two major changes with the publication of the new
ISO/IEC 17025:2017 with the 3 year transition period defined by ILAC and the
publication of the new Regulation EU
2017/625 related to official controls which now covers plant health and makes it mandatory for official control
laboratories in this area to be accredited before the 29th of April 2022.
That’s why we are
very enthusiastic with the ongoing cooperation with EPPO, a reputable technical
organization that carries out amongst other activities work on plant pest
diagnostics which helps us to ensure a common interpretation of the
requirements in this field.”
Françoise
Petter, EPPO Assistant Director: “Since the start of our collaboration with EA, we have benefited from
direct input from accreditation bodies in our work. The first version of our
Standard ‘Specific requirements for laboratories preparing accreditation for a
plant pest diagnostic activity’ was prepared with the assistance of EA
Laboratory Committee members who participated in a meeting where the content of
our Standard was discussed. More recently exchanges with EA on the
implementation of flexible scope in plant pest diagnostics laboratories have
allowed us to prepare the third revision of the Standard based on a common
understanding. We are looking forward to further collaboration for the
preparation of the alignment of this Standard with the new ISO/IEC 17025:2017
for the benefit of both EA members and EPPO members