Updates on the European General Product Safety Directive

The General Product Safety Directive was developed to establish safety requirements for consumer products not regulated by sector legislation (the way medical devices or machinery are). Essentially, the directive requires that producers provide safe products, that they inform consumers of potential risks, that they work to prevent risks, and that they can adequately trace dangerous products.

Recently, the directive was updated to include the following:

• To clarify and extend the scope of the directive to ensure that all products not covered elsewhere are covered in this directive;
• To make a more effective use of standards;
• To reinforce the powers and tasks of the Competent Authorities in terms of market surveillance and enforcement of safety requirements;
• To promote a more systematic approach to market surveillance;
• To establish a framework of collaboration among Member States for market surveillance;
• To improve the Rapid Alert system (RAPEX) for products posing serious risks;
• To enable the exchange of Rapid Alert notifications to third world countries;
• To streamline Community-wide intervention measures;
• To ensure that products withdrawn from the market because of safety risks are not exported to third world countries.

The directive provides for a European Product Safety Network which, ideally, will serve as the primary means of safety-related product information throughout the European Union. The Commission has also adopted new guidelines to ensure an efficient and consistent application of notification procedures for products that turn out to be dangerous. Among the requirements is that producers must notify the Competent Authorities is a product poses risk to consumers.