Free circulation of goods throughout Europe presupposes market acceptance in one country of the national conformity marks delivered to the product in another country, preferably without any retesting of the product and corresponding costs and delays. For that purpose CENELEC has nurtured a series of mutual recognition agreements between conformity assessment in different fields, as follows:

- CENELEC Certification Agreement (CCA) for the whole range of products covered by the Low Voltage Directive, including IT equipment;
- HAR Agreement for electrical cables and cords (http://www.har-cert.com/);
- Low Voltage Agreement Group (LOVAG) for low voltage switchgear and controlgear  (http://www.lovag.net);
- Short-circuit Testing Liaison Agreement (STLA) for high voltage switchgear and controlgear;
- ENEC Agreement for luminaires (a.o. equipment such as the safety of IT equipment on the basis of EN 60950) (http://www.enec.com/);
- EMCRAFT for testing of EMC and RF in the field of IT, Telecommunications and Radio-communications, Automotive and Electrical Equipment and Installations;
- Keymark Agreement for household appliances (http://www.keymark-cert.com/).

Mutual recognition of test results, inspection reports, certificates or marks of conformity is a process by which an organization participating in a mutual recognition arrangement gives confidence to its customers that testing, inspection and/or certification performed by another participating organization is equally acceptable as its own.

The prerequisites for such mutual recognition would be:

- the requirements for the products are specified in European standards;
- the procedures for assessment of new participating bodies and the criteria for acceptance of these bodies are harmonized;
- the parties involved in the conformity assessment have earned mutual trust and apply the relevant standards in a uniform way.

In this respect, different kinds of mutual recognition agreements (MRAs) can be considered in an increasing order of complexity, as follows :

- MRA based on the recognition of common procedures, such as testing procedures and test report forms (LOVAG, STLA, EMCRAFT);
- MRA based on the acceptance of test results or inspection reports from another participating body as the basis for the granting of its own certificate or mark of conformity (CCA, EMCRAFT)
- MRA for the recognition of each other’s certificate or mark of conformity (HAR, LOVAG);
- MRA for the issue of a common certificate or mark of conformity (ENEC, Keymark, LOVAG).

Detailed information on the different MRAs is available from the attached fact sheets.

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fact sheets MRAs-06.pdf