ERU, Alm.del - 2009-10 - Bilag 286: Regeringens høringssvar på konsultationen vedr. revisionen af Produktsikkerhedsdirektivet, fra økonomi- og erhvervsministeren

The General Product Safety Directive provides for a high level ofconsumer safety across the European Union. Globalization and speed oftechnical developments within the area of consumer products now callsfor a more modern and efficient legislative framework providing moreuniform conditions for economical operators and national authorities aswell as equal competitive conditions for businesses in all Member Stateswhile assuring a consistently high level of consumer protectionthroughout the European Union and a well functioning and effectiveinternal market.The Danish Government welcomes the Commission initiative in revisingthe General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) and supports the alignmentwith the New Legislative Framework to the highest possible degree,assuring common framework for the marketing of consumer products.The revision of the GPSD aims to resolve identified problems within theframework of consumer safety legislation. The Danish Government is ofthe opinion that services, if they are to be regulated, are considered to beincluded in the scope of the Services Directive, and not as an integral partof the GPSD.In specific terms, the revision should:1. Optimize the speed of standardisation procedures while maintainingthe political consensus on the safety requirements within the forum ofMember States as well as a high level of consumer protection. Yet, it iscrucial to keep in mind also that speed needs to be balanced againsttransparency, consensus and quality. Standardisation organisationsshould be encouraged to develop and improve their working methods,tools and processes, and the Commission’s mandates to EuropeanStandards Organizations (ESOs) should be precise and sufficientlyspecific.

2. Ensure that direct reference to documents that are not implemented inthe ESOs are not pursued, in particular not for areas outside the ICTarea. The strength of the European Standardisation System is thecoherence and cohesion of the system and the openness to allstakeholders according to the WTO principles. Documents developedby fora and consortia should when necessary be implemented by theESOs, and hence not referred to independently as documents withspecific status of their own. However, more emphasis on cooperationbetween the ESOs and fora and consortia could be pursued, given thatthe views and interests of all stakeholders, including consumers, aretaken into account.3. Ensure a speedier and more uniform application of EU product safety“emergency” measures to benefit economic operators, who are activein more than one member state, by removing legal uncertaintyregarding marketing of products as well as enhancing consumerprotection. We therefore support the proposed Commission initiativeof assessing the impact on making the emergency procedures directlyapplicable to economic operators. We also approve of the proposal ofextending the period of validity of these measures, making itdependant on occurrence of a certain event; such as adoption of an EUstandard or a permanent EU legislative measure with respect to anidentified risk.4. Improve harmonisation of safety evaluations of consumer productsamongst member States. Diverging safety evaluations pose a problemfor economic operators, as they thereby face inconsistent application ofsafety legislation towards their products in different Member States. Itis, however, of outmost importance that remedying measures, whichare chosen, take into account national and cultural differences andconditions of use of the products in question, while still aiming atsupporting the free movement of goods and services across borders tothe highest degree possible.5. Considerably improve market surveillance cooperation andcoordination. The change in market structure has raised a need for anew approach to market surveillance in order to continuously improvethe protection of consumer safety and health. To create an improvedand more uniform control of products, it is important that authorities ofall Member States collaborate and share knowledge about how to planto protection of consumers in an optimum manner.6. Strengthen and ease market control enforcement of consumer productssold on the internet. As the amount of products sold on the internet issteadily increasing, it is important to better protect consumer interest inthis area and remove the remaining barriers to cross border trade. Wesupport the Commission initiative to create a specific marketsurveillance guideline containing a best practice on market

surveillance on products sold online.7. Assure alignment with the New Legislative Framework (NLF) to thehighest possible degree. Following the adoption of the Free Movementof Products package, two sets of rules on general product safety exist.Coexistence of these rules without a substantive and practicalalignment of the GPSD with the NLF, will leave both economicoperators and national market surveillance authorities with differingproduct safety obligations. Diverging obligations for economicoperators, diverging competences of market surveillance authoritiesand different conditions for notification of measures tackling unsafeproducts should be avoided. These diverging requirements lead tohigher administrative burdens in general for businesses and expectedlyhigher exposure of consumers to dangerous products. Consequently,the Danish Government strongly supports the alignment with the NewLegislative Framework to the highest possible degree leading to fewerlegislative differences in Member States while ensuring theindependence of legislation not covered by the NLF. Providing a clearand uniform set of product safety obligations for economic operatorsfor all kinds of products and ensuring effective and clear producttraceability will also ensure better enforcement of existing productsafety rules. Consumer products supplied within the context of aservice should be subject to the same product safety legislation asproducts supplied directly to the consumer. Application of thelegislation should also not depend on whether the product is operatedby the consumer or by the service provider.8. Introduce safety requirements that the product do not becomedangerous in their expected lifetime. This requirement needs to takeinto account reasonable maintenance to be carried out by theconsumer. Justification for the introduction of this requirement into thedirective is that a wide range of products are not yet covered bystandards, that normally takes aging into account. For the sake ofconsumer safety, this requirement is necessary for proper enforcement.With these recommendations, we believe that a revised GPSD willprovide for equal competitive conditions for businesses in all MemberStates and a market surveillance framework strengthening thecollaboration between EU Member States with regard to surveillance andenforcement across the EU. Ultimately, this will increase the level ofconsumer protection as well as assuring consumer confidence.

Danish response to consultation on the General Product Safety

Directive legislative initiative