Product Safety and Market Surveillance, strengthening confidence and competitiveness in the European marketplace

Published: 27 May 2013

Policies & Issues: Internal Market - Compliance, Standards & Enforcement

Orgalime welcomes the objectives of the Product Safety and Market Surveillance Package as it strives to simplify and bring coherence to the legal framework for an improved enforcement of internal market rules. However, we invite the European Council and Parliament to adapt those features of the Package which, in our view, may undermine the objectives of simplification, coherence and proportionality, to the detriment of both European manufacturers’ competitiveness and the safety of consumers.

Product safety and enforcement of internal market legislation would be further simplified if:

  • The ‘risk’ assessment to be carried out by the market surveillance authorities includes as a first step the compliance check with applicable Union harmonisation legislation;
  • The scope of the Consumer Product Safety Regulation’s (CPSR) is clearly limited to non-harmonised consumer products;
  • The unnecessary and costly indication of origin on consumer products is removed.

Product safety and enforcement of internal market legislation would be more coherent if:

  • Obligations of economic operators were better aligned with Decision 768/2008, taking into account all possibilities of reducing administrative burden;
  • European reference laboratories were accredited their role clarified so that they do not compete with conformity assessment bodies;
  • The room for discretionary decisions by market surveillance authorities was minimised;
  • The implementing powers conferred on the Commission had a limited scope and time-span
  • The voluntary nature of standards was preserved;

Product safety and enforcement of internal market legislation would be more proportional if:

  • Sanctions and penalties were related to the severity of the infringement and the level of illegitimate revenue derived from it, instead of the size of the undertaking;
  • Economic operators were granted a cost-efficient right to redress;
  • The precautionary principle is not used at enforcement level;
  • Mandatory third-party certification is not introduced under the package.

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