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European Equivalence
Assessment
The IOAS offers three
options to comply with the amending regulation EC
1997/2006 of December
2006 as follows:
-
ISO65 accreditation
with scope of EU regulation
-
ISO65 accreditation
with scope of a private organic standard
or other national regulation
-
Equivalency
evaluation and report
Options 1. and 2. can be considered under
IOAS accreditation against ISO/IEC 65.
All options are implemented in a similar manner and cost much the same, the
important difference being whether the certification body must be compliant
(fully in option 1) or equivalent (option 3). Option 2 requires compliance
against ISO65.
The European Equivalence Programme of IOAS
is operated as a formal accreditation but equivalence judgements are made
using the Codex Guidelines for the Production, Processing, Labelling and
Marketing of Organically Produced Foods (CAC/GL 32)
We still await detailed requirements from
the EU Commission as to how such programmes must be implemented but we
expect this programme to be operated with full surveillance as for other
accreditations.
For the most up to date understanding of the new
system, go to our questions and answer page.
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Last updated:
06/05/2008
January 2008: In a
meeting of the Standing Committee on Organic Farming, the new logo
for organic products in europe was approved (see below)
...... but then it was
withdrawn due to being considered too similar to the organic logo of a well-known
German supermarket.
When it is finally
finalised the EU logo for organic
production will have to be used on all packaged products. Next to the EU
logo, there will have to be an indication of the place of farm production
for all the ingredients except herbs, stating whether it is 'EU agriculture'
(or the national identity, if the member state allows) or 'non-EU
agriculture'. If the ingredients are a mixture of EU and non-EU, then the
label would state 'EU/non-EU agriculture'. |
