Brussels, 08/05/2012 (Agence Europe) - A total of 1,803 dangerous consumer products were banned, withdrawn from the EU market or recalled after being detected on the European market and reported by member states 2011 (compared with 2,244 in 2010 and 2,800 in 2009). The annual report on RAPEX, the EU's rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products (with the exception of pharmaceutical products and medical devices) published by the European Commission on Tuesday 8 May reveals a 20% drop in notifications recorded by RAPEX - a first in the eight years that the system has been in existence and good news for consumers. Just as in previous years, clothing and textiles, toys and motor vehicles head the list of dangerous products, with 74% of all reports of products posing a serious risk, and China is still the country from which most of the detected dangerous products come, with more than half of the reports to RAPEX. This number is, however, dropping: 58% in 2010 to 54% in 2011.
“2011 was an excellent year for product safety. RAPEX is maturing and is achieving very good results. Fewer and fewer dangerous goods are reaching the EU market”, said Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli. He acknowledges, however, that much work remains to be done. For the future it is essential that a uniform monitoring system be put in place with increased cooperation within the EU and improved cooperation with international partners, he added.
Several factors explain the fall in the number of notifications in 2011: - better market surveillance by national authorities, which are cooperating more and better; - better risk assessment by authorities through a method introduced in 2010; - more effective use of RAPEX by member states, mindful of the quality and usefulness of notifications; - growing co-operation with customs authorities; - and better cooperation with international partners, including China.
The league table of goods most often reported is led by clothing and textiles (423 notifications -suffocation or irritation risks), toys (324 notifications - mainly choking risk), motor vehicles (171 notifications - risk of injury), electrical appliances (153 notifications - risk of electric shock) and cosmetics (104 notifications - chemical risk). There were 293 reports of dangerous goods of European origin (19% of total notifications) - 44 products came from France (3%), 43 from Germany (3%) and 32 from Italy (2%). (AN/transl.rt)