Negotiators from the EU Council and the European Parliament finally agreed on Thursday 7 February on the regulation on compliance with and enforcement of European rules, in particular so that it does not cover counterfeit products, contrary to what the European Parliament wanted.
The European Parliament had introduced the possibility for national market surveillance authorities to take restrictive measures against counterfeit products (Article 17), products that the Council has always wanted to exclude from the scope of the Regulation, on the grounds that it focuses only on products legally sold in the internal market - since other mechanisms exist for counterfeit products. Finally, counterfeit products will only be mentioned in general terms in the recitals.
It should be noted that peer review between national supervisory authorities will be carried out on a voluntary basis, where the European Parliament wanted them to be mandatory. The EU Product Compliance Network - which aims to strengthen cooperation between market surveillance authorities, European institutions and economic operators - will be able to carry out regular evaluations of national market surveillance strategies, with a first evaluation 5 years after the entry of the Regulation into force. In addition, the European Commission may also, in its evaluation report, consider ways to improve cooperation between market surveillance and customs authorities.
As regards mutual assistance, the recitals have been amended in order to facilitate the acceptance of aid applications, in particular as regards access to the declaration of conformity, the declaration of performance and the technical documents.
In addition, the Council won its case on the article on the declaration of conformity, which has been deleted. Finally, the implementation of the Regulation was scheduled for mid-2021, where the European Commission initially planned for 2020.
The Regulation aims to establish the same level of control for products from third countries as for those from European production and seeks to strengthen the control role of national market surveillance authorities. In particular, it requires Member States to ensure effective control of products sold online, with the same level of ambition as for products sold through so-called "traditional" channels (see EUROPE 11929).
Mixed reception. The need for economic actors from third countries to have an economic operator on EU territory to ensure the conformity of the products they sell in the EU's internal market is certainly the most visible and commented on measure, even denounced, in particular by the American ambassador, who yesterday posted several particularly critical tweets (see EUROPE 12189).
BusinessEurope considers the measure to be a misguided idea. "Companies that are already not complying with the rules will likely not appoint such an economic operator", explains the employers' organisation in a simple statement, for whom the measure will only be an additional burden for companies trying to comply with EU rules. For BusinessEurope, a risk-based approach should rather be adopted by isolating products that present a real risk to consumers. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)