Product Safety Directive / Revision

Key points

The EESC:

• Proposes, in order to increase legal certainty, to strengthen the definition of safe products as well as some of the criteria used to assess their safety;
• Strongly doubts that consumer protection will be sufficient if the effort to implement it continues to rest primarily on national supervisory authorities rather than on platforms;
• Regrets that the proposed regulation under consideration does not specify whether online marketplaces are importers or distributors of products depending on their activity and their role in the (digital) supply chain and that it does not provide them with obligations and responsibilities similar to those weighing on physical stores;
• Believes that it is necessary to extend the work of market surveillance to cover all consumer goods and that this work should result from shared, coordinated, properly funded and streamlined efforts across Europe;
• Deplores the lack of obligation for Member States to collect and provide better data on accidents and injuries. In the absence of an injury database at Union level, it will be difficult to ensure a cost-effective implementation of the regulation under review and to carry it out subsequently correct assessments; and
• Would welcome the adoption of measures to support SMEs, and especially microenterprises, as part of their obligations, including a period of financial support, by providing clear and useful guidelines, advice and adequate training in order to ensure that SMEs are not disadvantaged in their compliance efforts compared to larger operators with more resources.

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat.