During a presentation to the European Parliament by the European Commission on Monday 22 January, MEPs at the internal market and consumer protection committee (IMCO) gave a very positive welcome overall to the "products" package launched last December.
All the MEPs appeared satisfied with the European Commission's two draft regulations. One of them aims to enhance mutual recognition for non-harmonised products and the other seeks to strengthen market monitoring of harmonised products (see EUROPE 11929).
In the case of the two main political groups, the text did not provoke any misgivings at all from either the EPP group's Ivan Štefanec (Slovakia), or the coordinator for the S&D, Nicola Danti (Italy). The latter even highlighted his satisfaction and pointed out that as a general rule his group was not very enthusiastic about the proposals made by the Commission. Danti did, however, regret the fact that the “made in” reference had been removed from the European Commission's proposals.
Those who raised a number of questions include Daniel Dalton MEP (ECR, United Kingdom). The latter expressed concerns about the excessive powers allocated to the market monitoring authorities in the Commission proposal, as well as the large number of products that possibly had to be inspected and, finally, the provision demanding that economic actors from third countries have a representative on Union territory. He believed that this was an excessive provision and would possibly be against international competition law. Christel Schaldemose (S&D, Denmark), expressed concern about the number of products the monitoring authorities would have to inspect and asked about the inspection thresholds that needed to be set out and with regard to this referred to the model decided by the co-legislators for the regulation on motor vehicle type approval and monitoring (see EUROPE 11945).
Following the different interventions made by the MEPs, the European Commission, which had come to present its proposal, welcomed the consensus obtained. It did, however, indicate that it did not wish in any way to increase the number of harmonised products but did explain, nonetheless, that the more a product involved a more comprehensive technology, the more likely it was to be the subject of European harmonisation. It also said that it thought it necessary to strengthen the scope of the monitoring authorities but that this was not a problem in itself and that the real problem involved the quality of monitoring. It pointed out that this was the real crux of the matter and that the member states had a tendency to reduce human and financial resources for monitoring authorities. Finally, the Commission explained that seeking to impose representatives on economic actors on European territory was compatible with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules.
The chairperson of the committee, Anneleen Van Bossuyt (ECR, Belgium), announced that the first text would be steered through by an EPP rapporteur and the second by an MEP from the S&D. Their names have not yet been made known and no timetable has so far been set out. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)