Growing risks

Children are increasingly those most at risk, exposed as they are to the risk of toys that are not always safe or immune from dangers for health and safety. But care and vigilance are also needed in the purchase and use of other products, such as underwear, household articles, electrical appliances and vehicles of various kinds. RAPEX, the EU Rapid Alert System for non-food consumer products, publishes an annual report on dangerous consumer goods, pointing out that, as last year, as indeed as has been the case for some fifteen years, the number of notifications of risk is growing.Growing notifications. RAPEX, a European Commission agency under its Consumer Affairs directorate, is a rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products that permits the rapid exchange and storage of information, and the monitoring and prevention of the various threats by which the consumers of the 27 member states are exposed in their daily contacts with non-food consumer products. As far as 2009 is concerned, the cases reported by the system (which also publishes a weekly online bulletin with the list of products under observation – www.europa.eu/consumers) increased by 7% over the figure for 2008. “This rise – says the report – from the 1,866 notifications in 2008 to the 1,993 last year indicates among other things that the capacity of the RAPEX system has been further increased, also thanks to a more effective surveillance of the market by member states”. According to RAPEX, “European businesses are now taking seriously their responsibility in terms of the safety of consumer products and are more willing to withdraw from the market any of their products that are found not to be safe”. RAPEX also observes that businesses “are also beginning to make more systematic use of the rapid alert system specifically dedicated to firms (Business Application)”. In the interests of citizens. The European Commissioner for Health and Consumer Policy, John Dalli, says: “We need this report as an annual verification of the safety of products present on the European market, in the interest of citizens”. Safety, which requires cooperation between consumers, national authorities, agencies, judicial and investigative authorities, and customs, also plays a role of “essential importance for member states and over the last six years RAPEX has become an exemplary instrument testifying to the effectiveness of EU cooperation in this field”. Toys, items of clothing and motor vehicles were among the products most frequently placed under accusation in 2009. The overall number of notifications distributed through the RAPEX system has gradually increased since 2004, the year in which the Directive on product safety was absorbed into the national legislation of member states. “In these six years the number of notifications has more than quadrupled rising from 468 in 2004” to almost two thousand last year. “As regards the countries of origin that cause the most problems in terms of product safety, China still takes first place.Spain and Germany the most “vigilant”. The rapid alert system now involves all the member countries. The nations that presented the largest number of notifications were Spain (220 notifications), Germany (187), Greece (154), followed by Bulgaria and Hungary. The report points out: “Toys (472 notifications), items of clothing and textile products (395), and motor vehicles (146) correspond to 60% of all the notifications relating to products that present serious risk forwarded [to RAPEX] in 2009”. Electrical appliances (138 notifications) “take fourth place among the products most frequently” reported for safety risks. Increased surveillance and capacity to intervene at the EU level are, according to the annual report, due to various causes: more effective application of safety regulations for non-food products by national authorities; greater consciousness among businesses of their obligations; increased cooperation with third countries; greater attention paid by consumers and by the authorities in this field; and wider recognition of their duty to defend the health and safety of children, in particular, safety in the home, and consumers in general.Focus on toys. RAPEX has also published the results of a particular initiative that regarded the safety of toys, through a pilot project conducted by 13 states (Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Slovakia, the Netherlands). Over 14,000 toys of every kind and description were inspected. The inspections also included the monitoring of importers and retailers. “Of the toys inspected, 803 samples were sent to a laboratory to ascertain their mechanical safety (576 samples) and heavy metal content (227). Two hundred toys failed the mechanical resistance tests, while only 17 failed to conform to the requisites in terms of heavy metal content”. The national authorities then intervened to ban the dangerous toys identified.