Motor vehicles topped the list of dangerous products notified to the EU Safety Gate in 2021 for the first time, followed by toys, confirms the European Commission’s annual report on the rapid alert system for non-food products for the previous year, published on Monday 25 April.
Preliminary data had already been presented at the end of December 2021 (see EUROPE 12846/7). The report also confirms that out of 5,142 alerts resulting in 4,965 follow-up actions by national authorities - including recall measures for these products - the most common risks were related to physical injuries or chemicals harmful to health (see EUROPE 12669/10).
Presenting the report to the press, EU Commissioner Didier Reynders announced the launch of a new tool - a search engine for Member State supervisory authorities that will allow them to trace online offers and suppliers “and will help authorities to more easily detect online offers of dangerous products reported in the Safety Gate”.
He also highlighted the strengthening of transatlantic cooperation through a dialogue with the US Consumer Product Safety Commission. An informal dialogue with the Federal Trade Commission has already begun. According to Mr Reynders, cooperation with China, launched in 2006 with an information exchange programme and strengthened in 2019, “is bearing fruit”.
In addition, the voluntary commitment to product safety made by various online retailers is gaining traction, according to the progress report published the same day. Eleven major platforms have now signed a commitment with the European Commission to respond to notifications as soon as possible by cooperating with the competent authorities of the Member States. “I encourage other online platforms to sign up”, Mr Reynders said.
The proposal for a regulation on general product safety, currently before the EU Council and the European Parliament, aims to modernise the legislative framework by targeting products containing new technologies and online sales, he said (see EUROPE 12931/2).
“These figures should be a wake-up call for European regulators to agree on an ambitious new General Product Safety Regulation in the coming months”, commented Monique Goyens, Director General of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), in a press release, saying that these results are “discouraging”, given that the notifications “only represent the tip of the iceberg”.
According to Stephen Russell, Secretary General of the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation (ANEC), the report shows that “national authorities need to commit the resources necessary to intervene and ensure that the legislation is keeping consumers safe”.
See the annual report: https://aeur.eu/f/1ck (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)