The Confederation shall run national reference laboratories.
If the competent federal authority is unable to run reference laboratories itself, it shall delegate this task to third parties. If the threshold value in Article 6 paragraph 1 of the Federal Act of 16 December 199414 on Public Procurement is exceeded, it shall invite tenders for the contract.
The Federal Council shall determine the laboratories’ areas of responsibility and regulate their tasks.
The laboratories must:
meet the international standards on the operation of testing laboratories and be accredited in their assigned field of activity;
have sufficient staff, rooms, equipment and resources to be able to fulfil their tasks at all times;
be able to provide suitable guarantees of their credibility, impartiality and independence vis-à-vis persons who manufacture, import or place on the market products that fall within the scope of responsibility of the laboratories concerned.