|
European consumers have become accustomed to assuming that all the products that they buy are safe. However, there are always those that argue that things could be improved still further. The key EU legislation dealing with the safety of consumer products is under review, explains Douglas Herbison, Chief Executive of AMDEA.
The first General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) was issued in 1992 and was intended to protect consumer health and safety and to ensure the proper functioning of the internal market of the EU. It defines what constitutes a safe product and considers both normal use (ie as intended by the manufacturer) and reasonably foreseeable misuse (ie how consumers actually treat them, excluding serious misuse). It is transposed into UK law as The General Product Safety Regulations 2005.
The principles
The GPSD deals with non-food consumer products that can be used by consumers but which are not already covered by sector-specific safety legislation (such as toys, machinery etc). Where a product is subject to other regulations, the GPSD will still apply where matters such as producer responsibility or enforcement powers are not specified in those regulations or are set at a lower level. As an example, the Low Voltage Directive covers all mains-powered products (commercial and domestic) but the product recall requirements applying to consumer goods are covered by the GPSD.
European legislation uses the terms ‘producer’ and ‘distributor’ and sometimes the boundary between where a manufacturer or retailer sits in relation to these definitions is not that clear cut.
In addition to the basic requirement to place only safe products on the market, producers are obliged to inform consumers of risks associated with the products they supply. They must also take appropriate measures to prevent such risks and be able to trace dangerous products.
Distributors are required to act with due care to help ensure that the products that they supply are safe. They must also keep sufficient documentation to trace the origin of unsafe products and pass onto consumers any information supplied by the producer about risks and pass back to the producer any complaints or comments about safety from their customers.
The alert systems
The Directive also provides for a Rapid Alert System (known as RAPEX) between Member States and the Commission to communicate details of products which have been identified as being potentially unsafe. In this way products discovered to be unsafe in one country can be quickly removed from the whole of the EU. RAPEX notifications are published on the EU website every week and describe the product, the possible danger and the measures that were taken by the reporting country.
Since 2004 there has also been an online system called RAPEX-CHINA. The EU notifies the Chinese authorities of any consumer products originating from China, which have been identified as dangerous by Member States. The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine of China (AQSIQ) investigates these and, when necessary, adopts measures to prevent or restrict further export of these products to the EU. AQSIQ also provides the Commission with a detailed report on the results of its investigations and the measures they have taken.
In certain circumstances the Commission may adopt a formal decision to ban the marketing of an unsafe category of product, recall it from consumers or withdraw it from the market.
A few years ago, the EU introduced new measures to improve the working of the internal market and in particular how member states enforced Community legislation. These measures are known as the New Legislative Framework.
It is proposed to revise the current GPSD, primarily to bring it into line with the New Legislative Framework, but also because there is a view that the current system for dealing with potentially hazardous products could be improved.
However, we know that once a Directive is open for change the review process means that other interested parties, specifically Member States and the European Parliament, can make their own proposals. It is not uncommon for the Commission to propose fairly innocuous changes, only to have the European Parliament introduce far more radical changes into the final legislation. Hence, revision of the GPSD may have unforeseen consequences for both manufacturers and retailers.
