Achieving a higher level of consumer safety through a revision of the General Product Safety Directive

The General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) adopted in 2001 proved a key piece of consumer protection policy by creating a general obligation for producers to place only safe products on the market. It functions as the safety legislation for products that do not benefit from ‘sectoral’ – that is, product-specific – legislation. In practice, this means
the GPSD is the main safety law for commodities as diverse as furniture, textiles and child- care products. But by 2020, the Directive has however become outdated. 

As previous attempts to reform it failed, we welcome the European Commission decision to present a new proposal in 2021.

In the context of the preparatory work for a modernised GPSD, we have formulated in this position paper recommendations on how a GPSD revision can contribute to effectively protect consumers in the EU. In a nutshell, the reform process should deliver on the following key objectives:

1. Keeping the GPSD as a horizontal safety net which can fill lacunae in sector specific legislation, based on the precautionary principle.
2. Establishing a uniform framework for market surveillance of all consumer products with flawless traceability along the supply chain and effective enforcement.
3. Making the GPSD future proof to cope with new technologies.
4. Ensuring accountability in the supply chain and closing loopholes regarding international e-commerce.
5. Reducing exposure of consumers to harmful chemicals in products.
6. Setting product-specific mandatory safety requirements to provide for legal certainty.
7. Addressing other shortcomings of the GPSD, such as allowing the legislator to choose more demanding conformity assessment methods, defining criteria for child-appealing products, improving the effectiveness of product recalls, and collecting EU-wide accident and injury data.
8. Working well and flawless in combination with other policy reforms such as the Product Liability Directive, the Digital Services Act and the sustainable product policy framework initiative to ensure a high level of safety in the EU internal market and higher standards at global level.