After eight working group meetings, the Permanent Representatives Committee of the Member States to the EU adopted its position on the Regulation on compliance with and enforcement of EU harmonisation legislation on products on Friday 23 November. However, Member States have significantly modified the European Commission's proposal, in particular Article 4 on the entity responsible on European soil for a product sold on the internal market.
As a reminder, the Commission wanted to impose as a precondition for the provision of products the designation of a person responsible for compliance information, which could be the manufacturer, the importer or any other economic operator authorised by the manufacturer (see EUROPE 11929). Article 4 posed many difficulties for delegations, in particular with a view to ensuring fair competition between so-called 'traditional' and online trade.
As soon as the dossier was resumed, the Austrian Presidency announced that it wanted to rewrite the proposal in depth. Delegations agreed to replace the "responsible person" with a more precise term, which is "economic operator regarding compliance".
For each product manufactured in a third country, there will be a contact person within the Union. However, with a degree of flexibility: the seller will have the choice between appointing a fulfilment services provider, such as those responsible for storage, shipping or packaging without being the owner of the product, or appointing an authorised representative. However, the service provider will not have to automatically accept compliance tasks.
The Austrian Presidency has endorsed a Dutch proposal for a risk-based approach to ensure that Article 4 covers legislative acts covering products that present a high risk to the public interest. It has also taken over a proposal from Ireland to introduce a review clause for the Commission to present an evaluation report on Article 4 two years after the implementation of the Regulation.
The Presidency was authorised to open interinstitutional negotiations directly with the European Parliament. As a reminder, Parliament voted to strengthen the Regulation on 3 September in a vote in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) (see EUROPE 12088). (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)