Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-11-15-Speech-3-040"
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"First of all I wish to thank the rapporteur, Mrs González Álvarez, the draftsmen, Mr Rübig and Mr Lehne, and the respective committees for their very comprehensive report on the proposal for a European Parliament and Council directive on general product safety.
Improvement of Rapex (the rapid alert system operated by the Commission) is also necessary. The scope of Rapex is extended to include voluntary measures taken by industry to withdraw a product. The practical operation of the system will be improved. We now also provide for the possibility of opening the system to third countries, in particular to the candidate countries: simplification of procedures for emergency measures at Community level so that we can take rapid action following the advice of a regulatory committee. We have now introduced an export ban for products withdrawn at Community level.
Another point to which I wish to draw your attention is the question of improved transparency. Consumers often lack confidence because they do not know what is happening. Nothing undermines consumer confidence more than a belief that something is going on that they do not know about. We believe that, in line with the general policy of the Commission, citizens have the right to know which real dangers they are exposed to and the measures taken to prevent that. The limitation to this is professional secrecy as defined in Article 287 of the Treaty, except when there are overriding public health reasons. I expect that exception will be drawn and interpreted narrowly.
I am very pleased that the report of Mrs González Álvarez endorses the main principles of the Commission proposal. Many of the proposed amendments of the report are an improvement on the text and can therefore be accepted by the Commission.
Allow me to address first the amendments with which the Commission cannot agree. Firstly, Amendments Nos 1, 8 and 18 propose to exempt second-hand goods sold by charity shops and non-profit organisations, private persons, flea markets and car boot sales, as Mr Whitehead has said, from the obligation to provide information and documentation on product risk and product origin. The obligations of distributors, which have been a part of the directive since 1992, are formulated in a very generic and flexible way.
The only new requirement is that distributors, within the limits of their respective activities, are to safeguard and provide to the authorities on request the available documentation necessary for tracing the origin of products. This does not imply that distributors should actively inquire about the origin of a product, but just that they should not destroy identification of the product and/or manufacturer and keep trace of any useful information available on the product origin.
This new requirement does not imply any substantial additional responsibility in the case of these kinds of shops. Charity shops normally receive, as a gift, single used products which they in turn sell to consumers. The nature of their trade is such that they could not be required to play a proactive part in product tracing. In addition, the interest in terms of market surveillance of tracing the origin of single second-hand defective products is simply non-existent.
In conclusion, there is already a lot of flexibility in the requirements of the directive on distributors. These requirements can be applied to these kinds of shops in a way compatible with the nature of their activities. However, to meet the concerns raised and in order to further clarify the situation we could consider including in the recital dealing with this article a statement that it may prove impossible to provide the competent authorities with information and documentation on the possible risks and origin of the product in the case of isolated used objects donated by private individuals.
Secondly, Amendment No 3 proposes a deletion of part of the motivation for having clear conditions in the annex of the directive for the duty of business to inform the authorities about dangers. This motivation is needed in order to prevent excessive bureaucracy. Thirdly, Amendment No 4 proposes adding, in a preamble, a requirement that Member States draw up factual reports with the cooperation of competent and independent public or private institutions. To require Member States to engage external institutions for this runs counter to subsidiarity.
Amendments Nos 6 and 29 require the Commission to consider approaches or submit a proposal relating to the safety of services in Amendment No 29 before a specified date. The Commission is in fact already analysing and considering this issue, but it would go too far against the Commission's right of initiative to introduce this in the directive in such a prescriptive way.
Amendment No 7 proposes certain changes in the references to paragraphs. The first part is acceptable to the Commission, but it is not common practice in Community legal texts to explain the content of articles referred to, as proposed. To replace the word "producer" with "supplier", as proposed in Amendment No 11, would create more confusion than clarity, as there is no definition of supplier in the directive. The definition of producer already covers suppliers whose activities may affect the safety properties of the product.
The current Commission proposal is in response to the numerous problems related to the health and safety of consumers which have occurred recently. Although the review and revision of the directive are formally required by the directive itself, this coincides with the reinforced commitment by the Commission to safeguard the health and safety of consumers.
Amendment No 13 proposes adding a reference to the precautionary principle in the general obligation for producers to place only safe products on the market. The precautionary principle is a general principle of risk management by the competent authorities and cannot be enforced as such as a direct obligation on producers. The Commission does, however, share the view that the principle is important as a background for the revision of the directive, and a reference to this principle could therefore be made in the first recital of the directive.
Although the idea of publishing a full text of the European standards in the Official Journal, as proposed in Amendments Nos 14 and 16, is understandable, it would require fundamental changes in the relationship between the Community and the European standardisation organisations, probably implying higher levels of subsidies from the Community budget. The reason for this is that the standardisation organisations own the standards and that most of them finance part of their activities through the sale of the standards. This issue, with implications for most product-related Community legislation, cannot, therefore, be dealt with in the context of the current revision of this directive.
Amendment No 19 proposes harmonisation of Member States' monitoring approaches on the basis of guidelines prepared by the Commission and the consultative committee. Although the Commission is in favour of cooperation and common principles, the proposed wording runs counter to subsidiarity. To require Member States to take measures also in cases when business has already taken satisfactory measures to prevent a risk, which would be the consequence of the second part of Amendment No 21, is not acceptable. This would also run counter to the objective of encouraging business to take proactive measures on its own initiative.
Amendment No 23 proposes the introduction in the directive of provisions on compensation in respect of damage. These are civil law aspects, regulated by the directive on product liability, and should not, therefore, be dealt with here.
A requirement that the product safety network should be established within a specified time-frame is proposed in Amendment No 24. Although the Commission is in favour of quickly establishing a network, this has to be agreed between the Member States. It is therefore not realistic to set a time-frame.
The first part of Amendment No 27 proposes that only information related to the risks that have been established should be made available to the public. This is not acceptable, as consumers should also have a right to obtain information on on-going investigations – provided that this information is not covered by professional secrecy in the manner that I described earlier and drawn narrowly.
Finally, Amendment No 28 proposes that the Commission should submit a report on the implementation of the directive every second year instead of every three years. Although the Commission has sympathy for this idea, this cannot be done within the current limitations of the resources of the Commission.
The Commission cannot agree with most of the additional amendments proposed for the plenary session. Allow me to explain first the Commission's position on the amendments to which we cannot agree. Amendments Nos 30, 32, 42 and the main part of Amendment No 33 propose rewordings of the existing text of the directive which is not subject to revision. No problems have been reported to the Commission with the existing wordings and the changes would weaken the provisions.
Amendment No 36 proposes that services directly associated with the product should be excluded except when provided by the original producer. The discussions in Council go in the direction of dealing with the services within the definition of product which is, in fact, acceptable to us.
Amendment No 43 would totally exclude the application of this directive to products regulated by specific legislation. This is not acceptable, as these directives often lack provisions on market surveillance, notification systems and so on.
The revised directive will be of relevance for food safety for only a limited period of time but it will, in the long term, improve the possibilities for dealing with non-food product safety problems.
A possibility of proving that a product conforms to the requirements through external certification is proposed in Amendment No 37. Such certification can always be used for providing evidence but cannot, in itself, be regarded as foolproof.
Amendment No 38 proposes limiting the time period for emergency decisions to six months which is, in most cases, not sufficient for adopting permanent measures. It also proposes an exemption from the export ban when the producer can show that the safety requirements of the receiving State are complied with. This is not acceptable as products judged at Community level as posing serious risks and requiring rapid intervention should not be exported. The amendment also proposes that the possibilities for parties to submit their views on a Community measure taken should be without prejudice to domestic remedies. As this is not any type of appeal procedure, this seems unnecessary.
In addition, Amendment No 41 proposes that the export ban should not apply when a product has been banned while carrying out further checks. This is a period during which there are real dangers of exports taking place. If the checks confirm that the product is safe, the ban will automatically be lifted.
Amendments Nos 39 and 44 propose that information on dangerous products should only be available to the public once a banning or withdrawal decision has been issued and that exchange of information protected by professional secrecy should not be possible between market surveillance authorities. As the consumer should also have the right to information about risks not yet firmly established, including in cases when the measure taken is not a ban or withdrawal, this is not acceptable either. In addition, effective market surveillance cannot be carried out under the proposed limitations regarding confidential information.
Amendment No 40 proposes a deletion of the duty for business to notify the authorities about dangerous products they place on the market. That is not acceptable as this is a key improvement in comparison to the existing directive. Still on the notification obligation, we believe that to use the term "ascertain" instead of "conclude" for triggering the moment when information is to be notified, as proposed in the first part of Amendment No 34, will create more uncertainty than clarity.
Having extensively explained why the Commission cannot accept Amendments Nos 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 11, 13, 14, 16, 18, 19, 23, 24, 28 to 30, 32, 33, 36 to 43 and, in part, Amendment No 7, the second part of Amendment No 21 and the first part of Amendments Nos 27 and 34, I can inform you that the Commission can accept Amendments Nos 2, 9, 10, 12, 15, 20, 22, 25, 26, 31 and 35 and, in part, Amendment No 7, the first part of Amendment No 21 and the second part of Amendments Nos 27 and 34, as these amendments constitute an improvement and clarification of the Commission's proposal. In the case of some of these amendments, however, in particular Amendments Nos 2, 15, 22, 25, 31 and the second part of Amendment No 27, further editorial changes might improve the text.
To conclude, I wish to thank again Mrs González Álvarez for the excellent report which can be supported by the Commission to a large extent.
I would only say a few words to present the main aspects of this proposal. The idea behind the directive is simple: that only safe products are placed on the market. This means European products as well as imported products. The two key objectives of the general products safety directive are: ensuring a high and consistent level of protection for consumer health and safety throughout Europe and ensuring the proper functioning of the internal market.
We had extensive consultations with stakeholders – as the rapporteur has acknowledged – on implementation of the present directive, which brought to light certain weaknesses which we are now trying to correct.
We first clarify the scope of the directive. This directive is meant to provide good and consistent assurances of the safety of products for consumers. It is also meant to fill possible gaps in sectoral legislation, for instance, market surveillance or emergency procedures that are rarely provided for in specific legislation. However, it does not apply when specific sectoral legislation covering the same aspect applies. This also means that when new sectoral legislation is devised it supersedes the corresponding provisions of this directive.
For example, in the foodstuffs area – as you well know – when we have a food authority, the authority itself should provide a notification system which will take over from the general product safety provisions. We wanted to make sure that the directive gave the best coverage possible to products used by consumers. This also means products which have migrated from the professional field to personal use: for instance, laser pointers; and, secondly, products which are used to provide a service.
We wanted to have a more efficient system. This implies additional obligations for producers and distributors to provide information. The present situation is less than ideal. It is incredible, for example, that authorities in our Member States are sometimes informed by the US authorities that a certain European product is dangerous. The notification is compulsory in the United States but not, so far, in the European Union.
As you know, law is no good if it is not applied properly. Member States will now be required to strengthen the tasks of competent surveillance authorities. They will be required to establish sanctions. They will have to develop links with other Member States as well; in particular, through a network of enforcement authorities of Member States. This is also extremely important from an industry point of view in order to make sure that a level playing field is maintained between competitors and especially with imported products."@en1
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