05/07/2016 (Agence Europe) - Commission wants to strengthen compliance of products sold in EU. On Friday 1 July, the European Commission announced the launch of a public consultation to strengthen the compliance of products in the single market, on the lines of the regulation on market certification and monitoring applying to products marketed in the EU (regulation 765/2008). The Commission has identified two major problems: the lack of familiarity with product legislation based on EU harmonised rules, which often provokes "unintentional non-compliance" and the lack of economic incentives for companies to respect European legislation. On this latter point, the Commission considers that they need to step up market surveillance in an effort to discourage "non-compliant behaviour". The public consultation will attempt to work out whether European action is necessary or not. The cut-off date for comments has been set for 31 October 2016. (PH)