Accreditation
Published: 30 May 2007
Policies & Issues: Internal Market - Compliance, Standards & Enforcement
Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products 2007/0029 (COD)
Manufacturers bear the full responsibility for ensuring that their products conform to all relevant EU legislation. They alone remain responsible for the conformity of the product to all applicable EU legislation, whatever conformity assessment procedure has been applied and whatever conformity assessment body has been involved. Therefore, manufacturers have an equal interest to public authorities and other stakeholders to be assured of the competence of bodies performing third-party conformity assessment. Equally important is confidence in the competence of national accreditation bodies that assess conformity assessment bodies. Mutual confidence in the certificates and other conformity assessment results wherever they are issued in the internal market can only be strengthened by means of a properly functioning European accreditation system with the aim of ensuring equivalence, transparency, consistency and efficiency of accreditation performed across Europe.