Technical secretariat for the groups of the notified bodies under the following directives :

lot 1: personal protective equipment, Directive 89/686/EEC

lot 2: radio equipment and telecommunication terminal equipment, Directive 1999/5/EC

The Decision 768/2008/EC of 9.7.2008 on a common framework for the marketing of products provides that the Commission, in cooperation with the Member States, must ensure that close cooperation is organised between notified bodies in order to ensure coherent technical application of the conformity assessment procedures set out in the Community harmonisation directives based on the new approach and/or the global approach.

To this end, notified bodies must meet, in coordination, in order to establish coherent methods so that all the examinations are based on the same techniques and lead to comparable results. Moreover, in order to ensure consistency between the various groups, the Commission can assemble and organise inter-sector groups, by inviting the technical secretaries and chairmen of the coordination of notified bodies, either together or in restricted groups when specific subjects are discussed.

The experience to date in implementing the above directives has shown the need, in the interest of effectiveness, to assist the chairmen of the coordination of each group of notified bodies, on the one hand, by a stable administrative secretariat providing the logistical support to the groups' work, and on the other hand, by a technical secretariat. The Commission services attach great importance to maintaining a balance of interests between the various nationalities in the chairmanship of the coordination groups and in the technical secretariats, and consider that, while a single body can provide the administrative secretariat for different groups of notified bodies, each group should have its own technical secretariat, in view of the technical knowledge particular to the areas covered by each of the directives concerned. This approach is likely to facilitate the meetings, where needed, of intersectoral groups to deal with problems relating to 2 or more directives. The objective of the call for tenders to be launched in 2009 is to select the technical secretariats for the groups of notified bodies under the directives mentioned above. The requested tasks include for example:

• taking part of the meetings of the sector groups in Brussels;
• preparing the agenda in collaboration with the chairman of the coordination of the notified bodies;
• drafting the technical working papers;
• keeping informed and reporting to the group on the work of the intersectoral groups, on implementation of relevant Community legislation according to information provided by the Commission services, and on European standardisation;
• collect and format useful technical information to allow the notified bodies to carry out their activity in the most effective way;
• propose answers or solutions to technical problems raised at the meetings of notified bodies;
• take part in meetings at the specific request of the Commission services when they are convened to deal with specific technical questions;
• e application of the relevant directive;
• provide for intermediate and final management reports of the activities of the technical secretariat.

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