Envisaged Review of the General Product Safety Directive (2001/95/EC)

The safety of consumers is of great concern to Orgalime and the industries it represents, as our members duly consider product safety and compliance with applicable legislation as pre-requisites for placing their products on the EU market.

Orgalime believes that there is no urgent need to revise the GPSD, since the adoption of regulation 765/2008/EC now provides a single set of rules for the market surveillance of both consumer and professional products under harmonised Community legislation.  On the contrary we feel that the constant change of legislation affecting our products just creates unnecessary burdens on our companies, including the many SMEs that we represent. For other consumer products that could circulate freely on the market under Regulation 764/2008/EC, the GPSD has efficiently performed as a safety net since January 2004.

Improvement in consumer safety can be best achieved by efficient enforcement of the existing New Legislative Framework (Regulation 765/2008/EC and Decision 768/2008/EC) and all related product safety directives.