Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-15-Speech-1-147"
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"en.20081215.16.1-147"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mrs Thyssen, ladies and gentlemen, the Presidency welcomes the importance attached by the European Parliament to the subject of toy safety, particularly during this festive season. We need to be able to have confidence in the safety of toys, as these are products designed for children.
Likewise, to ensure that the parents of consumers are able to make pertinent choices, the warnings about toys’ potential risks and the minimum or maximum age limits of users have also been enhanced and must be made available, prior to purchase, to all those who govern such purchases, including online.
On the subject of the capacity of goods to comply with the essential safety requirements, the architecture of the Community system is maintained; where a European standard exists, manufacturers may themselves declare their toys to be compliant and affix the CE label. Obviously, if this in done in error, all the economic operators have obligations to fulfil at their respective levels within the supplier chain, and the authorities responsible for monitoring the Member States’ markets will be there to enforce compliance or to punish non-compliance.
In the absence of European standards, third-party certification is provided for, with the result that a high level of safety can be guaranteed. This architecture of ours is not exempt from the risks of abuse of the CE label, but, thanks to the vigilance of the market monitoring authorities and their increased cooperation at European level, the risk will be reduced.
Lastly, the precautionary principle and the capacity to adapt to new risks, where they are identified as such, are provided for in the directive. The French Presidency is therefore delighted with its constructive cooperation with the European Parliament throughout the negotiations on this important matter and is also grateful, on behalf of the Council, to all those men and women within the three institutions who have contributed to this positive outcome, which should enable us to reach an agreement at first reading.
For this reason, the Council has given special priority to the Commission’s proposal, which was submitted at the end of January 2008. The aim of the proposal is to enhance the safety of toys while preserving their free movement within the internal market. The market in toys, through its buoyancy, capacity for innovation and structure, is particularly sensitive and complex, and the colegislators have had to find a balanced approach that guarantees the safety of toys without increasing their prices and that does not impose overly heavy obligations on the manufacturers and importers of reputable toys.
Recently, aside from prices and innovation, new elements have appeared crucial in the eyes of consumers. Respect for the environment and the absence of substances that are in any way toxic or that present an allergenic risk have been at the heart of public debate. This has become evident ever since certain companies decided to withdraw from the market or recall products that may not have been entirely safe.
Accordingly, since the 1980s the European Union has been taking a technical harmonisation approach aimed at safeguarding the free movement of goods within the internal market while establishing demanding safety levels to ensure that only compliant goods can move around within it. Such compliance is guaranteed by the CE label.
Like 80% of the goods that circulate within the Union, toys are subject to this technical harmonisation approach, which is organised in accordance with a well-known architecture: European legislation – in this case the proposal of new directives – lays down the essential safety requirements, which are translated and refined technically into standards. The Commission, with the Member States, also lays down documents providing guidance on the implementation of Community law.
It is this architecture as a whole that would be enhanced by the adoption of the proposal as amended by the colegislators. The re-evaluation of toy safety in line with these new legislative standards symbolises the colegislators’ commitment to considering this area as a priority, since this is the first sectoral application of these horizontal provisions.
Indeed, in the text negotiated by the institutions – which is endorsed by a large majority of the Member States and which is therefore acceptable to the Council – not only market supervision, but also a number of the essential safety requirements, including the proposals aimed at limiting potential chemical risks in toys, are enhanced.
The provisions relating to carcinogenic and toxic substances were further enhanced during the negotiations between the colegislators in order to minimise or totally eliminate these substances, in particular for all accessible toy parts, and also to enhance the precautions relating to possible reactions when toys are put in the mouth, something that is inevitably done by the consumers of these goods.
Furthermore, the provisions aimed at eliminating the risk of toys and their parts causing asphyxiation by strangulation or suffocation have been clarified and enhanced."@en1
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