Celebration of the Accreditation Day in the Republic of Serbia

On 28^th June 2016, the Accreditation Body of Serbia organised an event on the occasion of celebration of the Accreditation Day in the Republic of Serbia at the premises of MPs Club in Belgrade. The opening address at the event, traditionally organised by the Accreditation Body of Serbia (ATS) on the date when the first accreditation was granted in Serbia in 2000, was given by the ATS Acting Director, Prof. Aco Janićijević PhD.

Prof. Aco Janićijević PhD, ATS Acting Director

This year’s celebration focused on the ILAC and IAF campaign aiming at the promotion of accreditation as a tool for attaining objectives in all areas in the public sector. Hence the representatives of respective ministries of the Serbian Government were presented the importance of accreditation as a tool used to confirm technical competence of accredited conformity assessment bodies (CABs) and the reason for using services of accredited CABs.

The use of accreditation enables public officials to upgrade and modernise its work and consequently cost-effectively and timely implement solutions. Moreover, competent accredited CABs help regulators regulate. It was also emphasised that MLA signatories’ Governments can improve the performance of business by encouraging the use of conformity assessment and thus ensure trust on the market of products and services and contribute to the protection and upgrade of public interests: health and safety, consumer protection, environmental protection and other areas of public importance.

In addition to international agreements, ATS also concluded bilateral agreements on cooperation in the field of accreditation with accreditation bodies from the region, and hence the event was also attended by directors of accreditation bodies from Croatia, Montenegro and Bosnia & Herzegovina. ATS Acting Director emphasised the quality of cooperation with the colleagues from the region as we all share the same goal –maintenance of the EA MLA signatory status and extension to the scope of the signed multilateral agreements.

Tihomir Babić, Director of the Croatian Accreditation Agency (HAA), highlighted the importance of the World Accreditation Day as a global initiative established to raise awareness of the importance and role of accreditation in everyday life, especially in economic activities.

Tihomir Babić, Director of the Croatian Accreditation Agency (HAA)

Director of the Accreditation Body of Montenegro (ATCG), Ranko Nikolić, explained that continuity was the most important for accreditation and stressed the importance of contribution made by all ATS employees to the development of the Serbian accreditation system. Furthermore, he said that successful cooperation was also underpinned by the exchange of assessors and experts and that cooperation between ATS and ATCG should serve as an example to others.

Ranko Nikolić, Director of the Accreditation Body of Montenegro (ATCG)

Željko Medak, Director of the Institute for Accreditation of Bosnia & Herzegovina (BATA), emphasised during his first visit to ATS that all accreditation bodies from the region exchanged experiences not only those related to everyday work but to the work of international organisations for accreditation as well, including their technical committees and general assemblies.

Željko Medak, Director of the Institute for Accreditation of Bosnia & Herzegovina (BATA)

Prof. Zoran Punoševac PhD, President of the Association for Quality and Standardization of Serbia, emphasised how important it was to continue cooperation between ATS and other associations dealing with quality and quality infrastructure for the purpose of upgrading the quality of our lives.

Prof. Zoran Punoševac PhD, President of the Association for Quality and Standardization of Serbia

Event participants

Present participants were also presented the promotional brochure “Accreditation: A Tool to Support Regulators” that was produced by the European co-operation for Accreditation (EA) on the occasion of this year’s World Accreditation Day, whereas the Accreditation Body of Serbia prepared the Serbian version of this brochure. This brochure aims at demonstrating how accreditation supports regulators and contains noteworthy amount of useful and user-friendly data especially when it comes to accreditation process definition and flow to cover data from more complex activities to basic steps in everyday work.

In addition to the brochure the present participants had an opportunity to see a promotional film (Settings/Subtitles/Serbian) that had been made for the purpose of celebrating 9^th June - World Accreditation Day.