At a Seminar on Consumer Safety in Palma de Mallorca today, Spain’s Minister of Health and Social Policy, Trinidad Jiménez, said the Spanish Government is drawing up a decree for certain products to be labelled in Braille.
The announcement came a day after the EU’s Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs Council (EPSCO) agreed in Luxembourg to set the minimum size of letters on labels at 1.2 millimetres, according to the minister.
Nearly 3,000 dangerous products were reported in Europe in 2009. Of these, 23.20% were toys, although the largest number of products reported in Spain last year were footwear.
These dangerous (or potentially dangerous) products may pose a risk because they contain toxic substances or because they include features that cause problems for users. These are all tracked using the Rapex rapid information exchange system, which operates throughout all the countries of the EU.
Of the almost 3,000 alerts handled by the EU, some 864 came from Spain’s autonomous regions and 2,011 from the European Commission, while a further 78 were notifications from the National Institute of Consumer Affairs (INC) on products rejected by Customs.
According to the Ministry of Health and Social Policy, these figures represent an increase of 15% compared to 2008, and mean Spain has contributed more alerts (242) to the Rapex system than any other European country, followed by Germany (233).
