Brussels, 07/02/2008 (Agence Europe) - The European Consumers' Association (BEUC) and the European Consumer Voice in Standardisation (ANEC) have welcomed the will of the European Commission to review Community legislation on toy safety, but already note weaknesses in the draft directive presented at the end of January (see EUROPE 9588). They say that there are still too many chemical products authorised, a precautionary principle that does not make the weight and the persistent problem of misunderstandings among consumers caused by the EC label. “We support the Commission's objective to address the problem of dangerous toys but we need much stricter rules, particularly concerning chemical substances in toys,” said Monique Goyens, BEUC Director General.
In a joint press release, the two consumer organisations say that they will look very carefully at the long-awaited legislation to adapt arrangements in directive 88/378/EEC to the toys currently on the market, which are “very different from the toys that were on sale in 1988”.
However, Beuc and ANEC regret that the revised draft directive provides for a ban on, what they see as, too restricted a range chemical substances. The Commission proposes to ban CMRs (substances which are carcinogenic, mutagenic or reprotoxic), but this ban only refers to the accessible parts of toys, and the exceptions provided for would make it easy to get around this prohibition. Furthermore, there is no provision for measures “for other problematic substances, such as endocrine disruptors,” they regret.
The two organisations argue that that the list of banned allergens is not exhaustive as it only covers a few fragrances, despite the fact that many other substances can give rise to allergic reactions.
Another shortcoming they have identified is the fact that the Commission failed to take as its starting point the precautionary principle under which the existence of suspicions on the dangerous nature of a product is enough to decide on its withdrawal from the market, and not enough flexibility has been planned to enable changes to be made to the directive to tackle new dangers that may arise in the future.
Dropping the EC label for toys and toy packaging
The consumer lobbyists repeat their concerns about the way the EC label (used to show that toys have been manufactured according to harmonised EU standards and therefore meet the main demands of the directive, Ed.) are wrongly seen by consumers as a safety label. BEUC and ANEC call for use of the logo, a sign that the product is assumed to conform with legislation, to only be used for the technical dossiers for control authorities and therefore no longer be put on toys or toy packaging.
Stephen Russel, ANEC Secretary General, said the new draft directive was a step in the right direction by warnings and labelling do not in any way replace the obligation to force manufacturers to only place safe toys on the market. (A.N.)