Work is progressing in the EU Council’s preparatory bodies on the proposed June 2021 General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), which aims to update and replace an outdated EU directive to take account of new technologies and the challenges posed by online trade.
This future EU regulation is intended to ensure a high level of safety of all products made available on the European market, whether purchased online or in shops and no matter where they come from, by virtue of the following general safety requirement: economic operators shall place or make available on the EU market only safe products.
The French Presidency of the EU Council presented the new draft compromise on which the Member States’ experts have been working to the relevant working group on 6 April.
This compromise, as seen by EUROPE, significantly expands and completes a previous draft of 25 February (see EUROPE 12899/20), in particular by strengthening Chapter II on safety requirements and the obligations of economic operators when a product proves dangerous (Chapter III).
Presumption of safety. The text adds an article on the presumption of safety (in Chapter II on safety requirements). Thus, a product will be presumed to comply with the general safety requirement in two cases: - when it complies with the relevant European standards developed in support of this regulation or parts thereof for the risks and risk categories covered by those standards, published in the Official Journal; - or, in the absence of standards, when the product complies with national requirements for the risks covered by the health and safety requirements laid down by the legislation of the EU country in which it is made available on the market.
The specific safety requirements to be covered by European standards will be adopted by the European Commission via implementing acts. However, the presumption of safety will not prevent market surveillance authorities from taking action under the future General Product Safety Regulation if there is evidence that a product is unsafe, the text says.
Early warning system/Safety portal.
Clarifications are made in Chapter III concerning the obligations of economic operators on the information to be provided in case of dangerous products made available on the EU market.
Thus, when a product is dangerous, manufacturers will have to inform immediately, via the Safety Business Gateway, the market surveillance authorities of the Member States where the product has been made available. They will provide details, including the risk to consumer health and safety, the number of products affected, and any remedial action already taken.
The European Commission will ensure that information to alert consumers can be provided by manufacturers through the Safety Business Gateway and be made available to consumers on the EU online safety portal (Safety Gate) without undue delay.
Member States should be given the possibility to lodge complaints by consumers, associations representing them, and economic operators, says the draft compromise in a new recital.
According to the compromise under discussion, manufacturers will have to examine complaints received about the safety of products they have made available on the market and keep a record of these complaints and of the corrective measures necessary to bring the product into compliance with the future regulation, including product recalls.
Manufacturers will have to make publicly available to consumers communication channels such as a telephone number, an e-mail address, or a dedicated section of their website, allowing consumers to lodge complaints and inform them of any accidents or safety problems they have encountered with the product.
The personal data kept in the complaints register will only be those necessary for the manufacturer to investigate the complaint about an allegedly dangerous product. These data are kept only as long as necessary for the purposes of the investigation and not longer than 5 years after they are stored.
Manufacturers will be required to inform other economic operators and online marketplaces in the relevant supply chain of any safety problems they have identified.
Importers, for their part, will be required to cooperate with the supervisory authorities and the manufacturer to ensure that the product complies with the requirements of the regulation. The importer’s address should indicate a single point of contact where the importer can be reached.
Penalties.
The text specifies, in a new recital, that in case of infringement of the regulation, the penalties to be imposed on the offenders, proportionate to the seriousness and duration of the infringement, should remain within the competence of the Member States, as regards the type of penalty. It should also be up to the Member States to lay down in their national law the relevant procedures for imposing such penalties.
See the compromise proposal: https://aeur.eu/f/185 (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)