New milestones on the European political agenda will mark ENAC's activity in 2025: the new regulations on batteries, artificial intelligence, cyber resilience and eco-design, and the new CSRD and Green Claims directives, among others.

On 11 December, a new meeting of ENAC's Ordinary General Assembly was held, chaired by José Manuel Prieto together with ENAC’s Director General Beatriz Rivera, where both ENAC’s budgets and activity plan for 2025 were presented. They also highlighted the main topics of interest about the organization, the national and international accreditation system, and the conformity assessment sector in our country.

During the session, Beatriz Rivera anticipated that activity in 2025 will continue to be marked by the enormous impact that European regulations are having on ENAC's activity and on all EU national accreditation bodies, due to the European Administration’s confidence in using accreditation and accredited services with more than 140 European legislations which include them among their requirements:

“During 2025, it will be necessary to develop accreditation schemes and processes for regulations and directives that have already entered into force or will do so soon, including new regulations framed in the New Legislative Framework (NLF) such as that for different types of batteries, which seeks to prevent and reduce adverse impacts on the environment; Cyber Resilience (CRA), on security requirements for digital products; Artificial Intelligence, which addresses the risks associated with specific uses of AI; or Eco-design, requirements applicable to sustainable products. It also highlights the new Construction Product Regulation. For all of them, it will be necessary to start assessments of the notified bodies operating in each of them”.

In addition, Rivera pointed out that "other European provisions which will require an increase of activity, both to develop schemes and to assess activity, will be the changeover of the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), which includes the participation of accredited verifiers, Regulation 2023/956 establishing a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), that will develop the verification related aspects during 2025; and the Green Claims Directive, which sets minimum requirements for justifying, reporting and verifying explicit environmental claims”.

Regarding national regulations, she explained that the flow of constant collaboration between the General State Administration and the different regional and local administrations will continue, providing necessary accreditation service for bodies operating in the regulatory field, technical support for integrating accreditation requirements in national provisions and developing new accreditation schemes that support public policies.

In relation to ENAC's sectoral activity, Beatriz Rivera highlighted the technology sector, for example, for its 2025 growth projection, given that activity in the cybersecurity and ICT field is expected to increase intensely, as well as new verification activities based on the UNE-EN ISO/IEC 17029 standard, motivated by schemes derived from new European legislation requiring accredited verifiers in areas such as sustainability, the environment or new technologies.

On a more operational level, the Director General pointed out that ENAC will continue to develop projects to digitize and automatize processes, incorporating the use of data analysis technologies and artificial intelligence into different parts of the accreditation process, in order to guarantee continuous improvement that enables us to continue offering the best service in terms of quality, technical rigor and operational efficiency.

Rivera also underlined the importance of continually collaborating with different stakeholders, highlighting the work to continue promoting quality infrastructure together with the Spanish Association for Standardization, UNE and the Spanish Metrology Centre (CEM)): “Permanent collaboration between the three pillars of quality infrastructure in Spain is essential for it to continue being one of the main levers for future economic and social growth, contributing to both public and private objectives that promote competitiveness in global markets, the efficient use of resources, food safety, health or environmental protection, among others”.

Moreover, and also in relation to ENAC's continuous relationship with all stakeholders, the Director General concluded that "the professionals who make up ENAC, its team of external auditors, accredited bodies and partners, together with the administrations, universities, scientific societies, national and international bodies and organisations that lend us their support and trust, we will continue working to provide the accreditation process with the rigor it demands and offer a competitive, solid and forward-looking accreditation infrastructure, inside and beyond our borders”.