Becoming an EUCC CAB in a Member State With No Pre-EUCC National CC Scheme (S11a)
A.K.A.: Should there be a bit more EU in the EUCC? By no means is becoming an EUCC CAB (ITSEF or CB) easy. Developing the capabilities for EUCC Substantial takes easily many years. EUCC High is very demanding and, for a new CAB, it can easily take well over five years of methodical development. For those CABs which operate in EU Member States with no National CC Scheme prior to the EUCC, the procedural challenges are even more formidable:
1. It is likely that the NAB has no experience on ISO/IEC17025 and ISO/IEC17065 with the scope of the testing and certification required by EUCC.
2. With no pre-EUCC National CC Scheme, it is likely that the NCCA does not have the capabilities for effective oversight. For EUCC Substantial, this is a lesser concern. For EUCC, this puts the CAB into a difficult position as their financial position depends on the NCCA developing the capabilities for effective oversight and CB function, even if the actual certification may eventually be outsourced to a CAB.
3. With the ceasing of the National CC Schemes, the recognition of the certificates issued by commercial Certification Bodies is not clear. The latest draft of the EUCC-CCRA MRA indicate that the MRA shall only cover certificates issued be Certification Bodies operating under the NCCAs which were signatories of CCRA as certificate authorizing nations prior to the EUCC.
The unfortunate conclusions is, that the opportunities of becoming a CAB are not leveled between member states. All this provides unique challenges to the testing laboratories wishing to become National Accreditation bodies under the EUCC. The talk shall explore all of the above topics in detail from the point of view of a testing laboratory based in an EU Member State with no National CC Scheme prior to the EUCC. Where possible, the talk shall also point to the strategies for overcoming the problems.