Wednesday 20 February 2013

Product Safety in 2013

Last week, the Commission launched the Product Safety and Market Regulation Package 2013.
The package's main content is represented by two proposed regulations, one concerning standards and the other addressing enforcement issues.

While the new Consumer Product Safety Regulation should mainly update (or enable actors to update) existing standards, the most important change to the existing regulatory framework should be an enhanced emphasis on product identification and traceability.

More "revolutionary" are the changes which would be brought about by the new Market Surveillance Regulation, which aims to create a one-tier system for major surveillance actions in the whole domain of non-food products (abolishing the current distinction between consumer and non-consumer goods). The new Regulation would therefore both unify procedural rules and stimulate the exchange of information among national authorities.

These actions should together contribute to mantaining and forstering a high level of product safety while simplifying the regulatory and procedural enviroment.

Whether the various stakeholders will agree with the Commission on this point, remains to be seen. In the meantime, more information can be found here, here and of course here.