Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-15-Speech-1-153"
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"I would like to thank Mrs Thyssen, my colleagues, the Council and the Commission for their extremely constructive cooperation. Just as Mrs Thyssen and several others here in this House have said, we have improved the directive in a number of areas. For us social democrats, a consistently high level of safety was the top priority objective. I think that we have achieved a high level of safety without imposing unreasonable demands on industry. We would, of course, have liked to have gone further in some areas, but I think that the compromise has for the most part resulted in a constructive text.
Our group wanted third party certification for certain toys, but we did not receive any support for this, either from the other party groups in the committee or from the Council and the Commission. We are naturally disappointed by this, but as we feel that the new directive is otherwise an improvement on the current one, we will support it in plenary. I am particularly happy about the fact that we are to have stricter rules for how carcinogens, mutagens and substances toxic to reproduction may be used – something that the Socialist Group in the European Parliament was not prepared to compromise on.
Compared to the Council’s proposal, we now have a much better basis for assessment and we have removed exceptions to the substitution principle, which will result in the limited use of these substances. For the most hazardous heavy metals we have halved the migration limits and prohibited use in any parts that children will come into contact with.
The precautionary principle has also been one of the most significant improvements. This principle is now stated in the article, which means that market surveillance authorities can now refer to this principle if there is reason to believe that a toy is dangerous but there is no scientific evidence for this.
We have produced a better definition of how toys should be designed so as not to cause choking. Choking is one of the most common causes of death from toys, and we view it as considerable progress that we have clear rules in this area. We welcome the fact that the new directive requires toys not to impair hearing. The Commission has promised to draw up a new standard and I hope that it will keep its word. We had wanted to see a more stringent regulation of allergenic fragrances in which all allergens were prohibited except in very specific cases. Parliament has nonetheless restricted their use to a greater extent than under the Commission’s proposal, and we hope that the list will be kept up-to-date if other allergenic fragrances begin to be used in toys.
We also welcome the fact that the rules for warnings have been made clearer and that more types of toys are to have warning text on the toys themselves, as otherwise it is easy for the warning to be forgotten once the packaging has been removed. Warnings that are important when deciding whether or not to buy the toy must also be visible to the consumer, irrespective of whether the toy is purchased from a shop or via the Internet.
I hope that, after this week’s vote, we can tie things up and be sure of safer toys under the Christmas tree in future. Thank you."@en1
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