The Spanish Ministry of Transport, Mobility and Urban Agenda has recently published Royal Decree 929/2020 on railway operational safety and interoperability, applying to the Railway Network of General Interest (RFIG) where the safety and interoperability requirements of the rail system as a whole are developed. In addition, the text lays out provisions for ensuring safety development and improvement, as well as improving rail transport services market access.

As set out in Article 90 of the Royal Decree, the State Railway Safety Agency (AESF) shall be the conformity assessment bodies' notifying authority, meaning, it will be responsible for "establishing and implementing the procedures necessary for assessing, notifying and monitoring the conformity assessment bodies" wishing to assess aspects related to operational safety and rail interoperability of the RFIG rail system.

In addition, Article 97 of the Royal Decree provides that, in order to carry out their activities, these conformity assessors must be accredited by ENAC in accordance with UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17065. In addition to the accreditation certificate, they must submit to the State Railway Safety Agency, as a notifying authority, "an application for notification (...) accompanied by a description of conformity assessment activities, conformity assessment module(s) and product(s) for which the body considers it competent.”

By this Royal Decree, the Public Administration again shows its confidence in ENAC's accreditation as a tool to ensure the safety and integrity of conformity assessment activities, in this case, in terms of rail operational safety and interoperability.