Test Method:

EU Directive 2001/95/EC (General Product Safety Directive- GPSD)
 

Applicable countries:

France; Italy; Germany; Spain; Netherlands; Turkey; Sweden; Poland; Belgium
 

Requirement/Limits:

Producers shall be obliged to place only safe products on the market. (please refer to the full Directive requirements
Here below some extracts :
(a)‘safe product’ shall mean any product which, under normal or reasonably foreseeable conditions of use including duration and, where applicable, putting into service, installation and maintenance requirements, does not present any risk or only the minimum risks compatible with the product's use, considered to be acceptable and consistent with a high level of protection for the safety and health of persons, taking into account the following points in particular:
(i) the characteristics of the product, including its composition, packaging, instructions for assembly and, where applicable, for installation and maintenance;
(ii) the effect on other products, where it is reasonably foreseeable that it will be used with other products;
(iii) the presentation of the product, the labelling, any warnings and instructions for its use and disposal and any other indication or information regarding the product;
(iv) the categories of consumers at risk when using the product, in particular children and the elderly. The feasibility of obtaining higher levels of safety or the availability of other products presenting a lesser degree of risk shall not constitute grounds for considering a product to be ‘dangerous’;
(c) ‘dangerous product’ shall mean any product which does not meet the definition of ‘safe product’ in (b);
(d) ‘serious risk’ shall mean any serious risk, including those the effects of which are not immediate, requiring rapid
intervention by the public authorities;
(e) ‘producer’ shall mean:
(i) the manufacturer of the product, when he is established in the Community, and any other person
presenting himself as the manufacturer by affixing to the product his name, trade mark or other distinctive mark, or the person who reconditions the product;
(ii) the manufacturer's representative, when the manufacturer is not established in the Community or, if there is no representative established in the Community, the importer of the product;
(iii) other professionals in the supply chain, insofar as their activities may affect the safety properties of a product;
(f) ‘distributor’ shall mean any professional in the supply chain whose activity does not affect the safety properties of a product;
(g) ‘recall’ shall mean any measure aimed at achieving the return of a dangerous product that has already been supplied or made available to consumers by the producer or distributor;
(h) ‘withdrawal’ shall mean any measure aimed at preventing the distribution, display and offer of a product dangerous
to the consumer."
"For the purposes of this Directive, and in particular of Article 6 thereof, the competent authorities of the Member States shall be entitled to take, inter alia, the measures in (a) and in (b) to (f) below, where appropriate:
(a) for any product:
(i) to organise, even after its being placed on the market as being safe, appropriate checks on its safety properties, on an adequate scale, up to the final stage of use or consumption;
(ii) to require all necessary information from the parties concerned;
(iii) to take samples of products and subject them to safety checks;
(b) for any product that could pose risks in certain conditions:
(i) to require that it be marked with suitable, clearly worded and easily comprehensible warnings, in the official languages of the Member State in which the product is marketed, on the risks it may present;
(ii) to make its marketing subject to prior conditions so as to make it safe;
(c) for any product that could pose risks for certain persons: to order that they be given warning of the risk in good time and in an appropriate form, including the publication of special warnings;
(d) for any product that could be dangerous: for the period needed for the various safety evaluations, checks and controls, temporarily to ban its supply, the offer to supply it or its display;
(e) for any dangerous product: to ban its marketing and introduce the accompanying measures required to ensure the ban is complied with;
(f) for any dangerous product already on the market:
(i) to order or organise its actual and immediate withdrawal, and alert consumers to the risks it presents;
(ii) to order or coordinate or, if appropriate, to organise together with producers and distributors its recall from consumers and its destruction in suitable conditions."
 

Product Scope:

Applies to all products