The European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) has launched the EA MLA mark, a new tool to boost confidence in the services provided by conformity assessment bodies accredited under the EA multilateral recognition arrangement (EA MLA).

The EA MLA is the mutual recognition agreement signed by EA member national accreditation bodies, which have successfully passed the assessment processes. With this agreement, the EA MLA signatories mutually acknowledge and accept the equivalence of their accreditation systems, which implies that reports or certificates issued by bodies accredited under the MLA framework will also be supported and recognized by all signatory accreditation bodies, facilitating international trade by reducing technical barriers.

This mark’s objective is, therefore, to improve market confidence, particularly within the EU, by enabling stakeholders—market participants, specifiers, regulators, and authorities—to identify conformity assessment bodies accredited by the signatories of the EA recognition agreement that have the necessary technical competence to provide reliable results, and whose reports and certificates have international backing.

In line with this launch, ENAC will soon make the combined EA MLA-ENAC mark available to accredited bodies so that they can use it on the certificates and reports issued within their accreditation scope. Likewise, the CEA-ENAC-01 document, which includes the rules for using it, will be reviewed.

For further information, please go to the European Accreditation webpage.