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No shelf-room for unsafe products - 17/04/2008
European consumers better protected than ever before thanks to improved national surveillance, says annual RAPEX report.
The EU's drive to detect and remove dangerous consumer products from the marketplace is working – last year the RAPEX rapid alert system handled 1 605 dangerous-product reports – up 53% on 2006.
Countries are clearly screening products more effectively than before, and the 2007 annual report shows more reports are coming from countries that previously weren't so vigilant.
In the list of reported products for 2007, toys were top (417), followed by motor vehicles (197), electrical appliances (156) and cosmetics (81). You can check the notification lists to see what products have been reported – because they've caused injury or choking, given an electric shock or started a fire.
Products from China once again triggered the most reports this year (700). In a bid to deal with this, the Commission will hold a seminar in China in June, to inform Chinese officials and manufacturers about the new toy safety proposal and raise other safety matters. An EU-US-China trilateral product safety summit is also scheduled to be held in Brussels in November.
“The point of RAPEX and other safety mechanisms is to ensure that EU citizens can shop in peace without having to worry about distinguishing safe products from dangerous ones” said consumer protection commissioner Meglena Kuneva.
