Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2008-12-15-Speech-1-161"
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"en.20081215.16.1-161"2
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"In September last year I warned on YouTube and elsewhere against the growing incidence of hazardous toys and I promised that we would take measures here to ensure that by Christmas the market would be a safer place. Many journalists ridiculed this, but others understood the issue. Such a powerful wave of checks was unleashed that by Christmas millions of hazardous toys had been withdrawn from the market. Even before Christmas. I appreciate the way that the European Commission responded quickly to our request and put forward a new, tougher directive. I also highly appreciate the efficient work of Mrs Thyssen. Not forgetting to mention, of course, the flexibility of the French Presidency.
The directive responds to new developments in man-made materials and also to findings in relation to physical harm to children etc. It is therefore stricter on the producers while also placing a bigger stick into the hands of monitoring bodies. I consider it highly important that the directive also increases or rather transfers legal responsibility to importers. After all, the main problem does not relate to European producers but to imports. 80% of cases concern toys from China. I also firmly believe that by next year, that is, even before the directive comes into force, importers will begin to select very carefully the factories – Chinese or otherwise – from which they will import toys into Europe. And they will select only those producers who meet European standards. If only the same could be achieved with other products as well.
This afternoon I had another meeting with toy makers from the Czech Republic and I must tell you that they have given a warm welcome to this directive and to the harmonisation of standards. Of course they would like us to increase the legal responsibility of the accredited testing bodies. This is because sometimes, despite having paid for tests, inspectors sooner or later identify specific shortcomings. For small producers these not inconsiderable costs may be a complete waste of money.
I would also like to bring to your attention how the directive is being circumvented, not only the existing one but probably the new one we are passing this week as well. Although it will indeed not be possible to state ‘this is not a toy’ on products that look like toys, producers will unfortunately label their toys as ‘decorations’. This directive is therefore just a first step and there is still much work to be done."@en1
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