CE Safety compliance getting stricter in the EU
CE Safety compliance surveillance and enforcement activities are finally getting stricter in the EU
On July 16, 2021, the new “Market Surveillance and Compliance of Products Regulation” comes into effect. This new regulation adds the requirement for CE-marked products to have someone present in the European Union acting as the point of contact (POC) for product compliance (a “Responsible Person”). https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32019R1020&from=EN
Clause 18: A fairer single market should ensure equal conditions for competition to all economic operators and protection against unfair competition. To this end, strengthened enforcement of Union harmonisation legislation on products is necessary. Good cooperation between manufacturers and the market surveillance authorities is a key element, allowing immediate intervention and corrective action in relation to the product. It is important that, for certain products, there should be an economic operator established in the Union so that market surveillance authorities have someone to whom requests can be addressed, including requests for information regarding a product's compliance with Union harmonisation legislation, and who can cooperate with market surveillance authorities in making sure that immediate corrective action is taken to remedy instances of non-compliance. The economic operators who should perform those tasks are the manufacturer, or the importer when the manufacturer is not established in the Union, or an authorised representative mandated by the manufacturer for this purpose, or a fulfilment service provider established in the Union for products handled by it when no other economic operator is established in the Union.
For products manufactured outside the EU, this would normally be the EU importer (which may also be the Distributor providing fulfilment services) as they already have responsibilities defined in 2016/C 272/01 (The ‘Blue Guide’ on the implementation of EU product rules) to ensure the necessary conformity assessments are carried out, that the CE ‘Declaration of Compliance’ (DoC) is provided and that the Technical file is available upon request. However, enforcing compliance for non-EU companies using e-commerce services supplying the EU market was more challenging prior to the new Compliance legislation.
e-commerce channels that distribute their own products (such as Amazon selling ‘Amazon Basics’ products) are already classified as a Distributor and therefore have to make the conformance checks for ALL Sellers when listing a new product in EU market place catalogs. Sellers that can not provide the necessary supporting product documentation for the restricted categories are correctly removed from the catalog. Remaining sellers simply need to nominate an EU point of contact from either within their organisation of via the use of a 3P 'Authorised Representative' service that will revalidate the documentation in the product Technical file. This maintains compliance to the new EU market surveillance legislation.
So what happened to all of the other Sellers? Unfortunately, these sellers with non-compliant product simply moved to an eTail ‘Platform’ as these carry NO CE responsibilities as defined in the ‘Blue Guide’ on the implementation of EU product rules. However, this is where the new market surveillance legislation comes into play as this now applies to economic operators (sellers) selling into the EU market, regardless of the channel and the classification of such.
Clause 19: The development of e-commerce poses certain challenges for market surveillance authorities with regard to the ensuring of compliance of products offered for sale online and the effective enforcement of Union harmonisation legislation. The number of economic operators offering products directly to consumers by electronic means is increasing. Therefore, economic operators with tasks regarding products subject to certain Union harmonisation legislation perform an essential role by providing market surveillance authorities with an interlocutor established in the Union, and by performing specific tasks in a timely manner to make sure that the products comply with the requirements of Union harmonisation legislation, for the benefit of consumers, other end users and businesses within the Union.
Such non-EU sellers now have to also utilise a 3P services ensure the products are CE compliant for both the safety of consumers and protection of compliant sellers which is the primary objective of the legislation .
Clause 1: In order to guarantee the free movement of products within the Union, it is necessary to ensure that products are compliant with Union harmonisation legislation and therefore fulfil requirements providing a high level of protection of public interests, such as health and safety in general, health and safety in the workplace, protection of consumers, protection of the environment, public security and protection of any other public interests protected by that legislation. Robust enforcement of these requirements is essential to the proper protection of these interests and to create the conditions in which fair competition in the Union market for goods can thrive. Rules are therefore necessary to ensure this enforcement, regardless of whether products are placed on the market via offline or online means and regardless of whether they are manufactured in the Union or not.
This long awaited move as a great step forwards to support reputable sellers selling compliant, ethically manufactured products into the EU.
For inquiries on ethically manufactured power supply solutions and sustainability programs, please don’t hesitate to contact us;
Andy Richardson – CEng MIET , info@salomeurope.com
European Vice President Business Development, Salom Europe Ltd
About Salom:
Salom is a leading global manufacturer of power supplies for consumer electronics products. As a manufacturing partner for global brands, Salom has produced in excess of 3Bn power suppliers since our formation. Salom products are trusted by some of the most successful electronics companies in the world, quietly and efficiently powering devices across the globe for more than 40 years.