Amendment of the GPS Directive and developments in product recall

The Swedish Presidency of the EU and the outgoing Swedish Chair of PROSAFE, the European grouping of national consumer product enforcement agencies, organised a conference on product safety and recall which attracted over 100 participants from the European Commission, governments, enforcement agencies, industry and consumers.

The conference was timely, since it arose out of the amendment to Directive 92/59/EEC on general product safety ("GPSD"), which has been under consideration for some 2 years, and it was announced at the conference that final agreement has been reached on the revision (the matter was in the conciliation procedure between the European Parliament and Council of Ministers).

Mr Erik Hansson of the European Commission announced that the European Parliament and Council of Ministers, led by the Swedish Presidency, have agreed a compromise on outstanding issues under the revision of Directive 92/59/EEC on general product safety. The Directive is likely to be adopted in July or September and to come into force in 2003. We will publish a detailed commentary on the new provisions shortly. The most important provision is a new obligation on producers to notify the authorities if they conclude that products have been placed on the market that are dangerous. A traceability requirement is also to be included.

Presentations given included ones by senior members of the US Consumer Products Safety Commission, which highlighted certain features of the US system: a single Federal agency covering the whole country, providing a single notification point, centre of technical knowledge, and enforcement agency.

Key proposals suggested by Chris Hodges of CMS Cameron McKenna on behalf of UNICE, which were widely supported by those attending the conference, were that there should be in Europe

• single notification points at manufacturers and enforcement authorities, through the Product Safety Network that is to replace PROSAFE, or possibly a single EU agency;
• pan-EU guidelines on consistent recall practice renotification, risk assessments, criteria for recall, best practice on implementing a recall, and on enforcement practice.

For further information, please contact Christopher Hodges by e-mail at [email protected] or by telephone on +44 (0)20 7367 2738.