Brussels, 25/03/2014 (Agence Europe) - The European Union's rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products, RAPEX, saw 2,364 dangerous products reported in 2013, 3.77% up on the previous year (2,278) with 64% of all the risk notifications being about Chinese products (compared with 58% in 2012), according to the 2013 RAPEX annual report published by the European Commission on Tuesday 25 March.
Physical injuries, dangerous chemicals, strangulation, electrical shocks and suffocation are the main risks reported in 2013, when a record 2,364 notifications were made. The Commission is not alarmed at the figures, seeing it as a result of the system being used more frequently as it becomes more efficient.
EU Consumer Policy Commissioner Neven Mimica told reporters that this year marks ten years of RAPEX and, in those ten years, the market surveillance authorities have notified 16,600 potentially dangerous products, thus helping to make the market safer. The commissioner said the steady increase in notifications, more than 2,000 a year now, compared with 200 or so in 2003, does not mean that there are more dangerous products on the market, but rather that there is better market surveillance these days. RAPEX is becoming more efficient, there is better cooperation among customs authorities, more information available on notified products, better traceability and better cooperation between customs and surveillance authorities. Nevertheless, more work is needed to ensure that EU safety rules are respected as they are the most demanding in the world, added the commissioner, warning that the Commission would continue to work with the member states and non-EU countries like China to ensure safe products across the supply chain.
To this end, the time between a notification being lodged by one member state and a response from other member states needs to be shortened; closer cooperation is needed with non-EU exporting countries to provide more details about certain products; the number of products deemed dangerous, but whose manufacturer cannot be identified, needs to be reduced; legislation needs to be improved to ensure greater traceability of products and simplify the monitoring of product origins; legislation is urgently needed on general products safety and market surveillance in the EU.
Top of the list of potentially dangerous products in 2012 and 2013 were clothing, textiles and fashion articles (25% of notifications) and toys (25% of notifications, compared with 19% in 2012 when they were in second place), followed by electrical devices and equipment (9% compared with 11% in 2012), cars (7% compared with 8% in 2012) and cosmetics (4% in 2012 and 2013).
For both clothing and toys, the most frequent notifications are about dangerous chemicals, like chromium hexavalent in shoes and leather goods, or phtalates in toys, along with the danger of strangulation, injury and suffocation for clothes due to drawstrings and cords. The products banned in 2013 include unstable baby baths and, for the first time, buggies that collapse in on themselves without warning and tattoo ink containing a number of banned substances.
Two-thirds of dangerous products notified via RAPEX last year came from China, 15% from the EU and countries in the European Economic Area, 11% from other countries and 10% of unknown origin. It was not possible to identify the manufacturers of half the dangerous Chinese products. (AN)