Single market, consumer protection strengthened in 2024

Brussels – The European Commission takes a step further in consumer protection within the single market. Today (April 16), the annual report of the Safety Gate, the EU’s rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products, has been published.

This system, which came into operation in 2003, allows national single market surveillance authorities to report any non-food product that poses risks to health and safety, as well as the environment, and take prompt action to stop its spread.

The cross-border sharing of information (regarding the type of product, description of the risk, and measures taken to remedy it) enables the authorities of participating countries—that is, the members of the European Economic Area (EEA), which includes the Twenty-seven plus Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway—to take uniform measures.

Last year, there have been 4,137 alerts collected on the platform: this is the highest number since surveying began, almost double the number of alerts in 2022. The actions recorded in the system by the competent authorities were over 4,200, often resulting in the suspension of sales or even the withdrawal of products from the market.

Of the various types of risky products, cosmetics were the most reported, accounting for 36 per cent of the total. In second place, toys (15 per cent), followed by electrical appliances (10 per cent), motor vehicles and chemicals (9 and 6 per cent respectively).

As for hazardous substances, chemical ingredients are the most reported: cadmium, nickel, lead, allergenic fragrances (including especially BMHCA, a compound banned by EU regulations that can cause skin irritation and go so far as to damage the reproductive system, found in 97 per cent of cosmetics) and synthetic chemicals (such as those used to soften plastic in clothing).

The 12-star executive is planning a “sweeping” investigation, in cooperation with national supervisory authorities, to conduct a series of simultaneous checks on a large number of websites to detect possible violations of EU regulations in certain sectors or for specific product categories.

The legal framework of the EEA was updated in December last year with the entry into force of the General Product Safety Regulation for products sold both online and offline. In addition, last April 10, the co-legislators (Europarliament and Council) reached an agreement regarding the Commission’s proposed new rules on safety of toys, which mainly cover harmful chemicals such as PFAS, endocrine disruptors and bisphenols, and the introduction of a digital passport for these items, regardless of whether they are produced in the EU or third countries.

To assist national surveillance authorities, the webcrawler application has also been active since 2022, scanning websites in all official EEA languages to track down any products among those reported on the Safety Gate. In 2024, the webcrawler processed approximately four thousand reports from the Safety Gate, analysing nearly 1.6 million websites and “catching” about 5300 online marketplaces.