Dealing effectively with dangerous imports is vital for consumers and fair competition

07 February 2019
by eub2 -- last modified 07 February 2019

Speaking today at the conclusion of trilogue negotiations between Council, European Commission and Parliament on the Compliance and Enforcement Regulation, EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren congratulated the negotiators on finalising this important new regulation for consumers and all the supply chain:

"We are pleased to see agreement to a regulation which will help prevent serious harm to consumers, and allow law-abiding operators to compete on an equal footing. This will send a strong and positive signal to support traders' efforts to bring safe and compliant products to the market. Rogue manufacturers and traders do not have a place in the EU market and dangerous products even less so."

Retailers and wholesalers in Europe are particularly happy that negotiators have reached agreement on a text for the Regulation which can now go forward for adoption.  We have been waiting for this step for a long time, allowing effective market surveillance to protect consumers. It removes a major distortion of the market for EU retailers and wholesalers who apply the rules, and yet have seen dangerous products, sold online and imported direct by individual consumers, passing under the radar.

Verschueren concluded:

"In recent years, and particularly with the explosive growth of shipments by Chinese online sellers, bona-fide EU traders have been faced with competition from unscrupulous non EU-manufacturers and traders selling dangerous products straight to EU customers by passing controls by market surveillance authorities. The agreement reached today will allow the authorities to enforce the regulations in relation to such products by having a responsible person in the EU with whom to deal".

EuroCommerce is the principal European organisation representing the retail and wholesale sector. It embraces national associations in 31 countries and 5.4 million companies, both leading multinational retailers such as Carrefour, Ikea, Metro and Tesco, and many small family operations.

EuroCommerce