Transatlantic product safety boost

Date: 20/05/04

EU AND US officials are seeking to forge stronger links on consumer product safety measures with a view to enhancing data exchanges and enabling access to rapid alert systems to pull products from shelves as soon as either side fires the first warning shot.

Hal Stratton, chairman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, met the heads of the European Commission's enterprise and consumer protection directorates last week to discuss ways of working together for the benefit of consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.

"We don't use the precautionary principle [in the US]," he said. "But I don't think that should limit our ability to work together."

Stratton has largely focused on China, where most US consumer products originate, since he was appointed to the four-year post in mid-2002 and he called his 13-14 May visit to Brussels an "exploration trip".

The former New Mexico attorney-general said on Monday (17 May) that a meeting with Robert Madelin, director general of the Commission's health and consumer affairs department, had proved particularly fruitful.

Both sides agreed to develop "a kind of 'memorandum of understanding'", although there were "no drafts on the table yet", said Stratton.

They also had a long and lively discussion on the "Chinese lighter issue". Beijing had in the past slammed as unreasonable a draft EU regulation on child-resistance to lighters and the problem was eventually solved via a voluntary measure.

"Most of the lighters come from China and the EU has adopted a voluntary standard on this," said Stratton.

But, he added, "China is concerned about it being a trade barrier", as it could contravene World Trade Organization rules on enacting standards as trade barriers.

Stratton said information sharing on the issue was important, as the US was also considering adopting such a voluntary measure.

But the EU and US should step up their arrangements for information sharing and Stratton said the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) would be keen on "being included in the [EU's] RAPEX system". This is a centrally administered database with the latest product alerts and recalls from all member states.

"If there are people looking at product safety issues in other places, we would like to know about that," he said. "It could act as a kind of early warning system."

Similarly, Stratton said the US CPSC was open to providing training seminars tailored to both new and old member states' needs.

The CPSC was one of the most open and "data-driven" institutions in the US government, he explained. "Any citizen of the EU can be notified of any recall straight through email."

Stratton also met with members of EU standardization body CEN, but said the harmonization of US national safety standards with the EU's was unlikely to get under way anytime soon.

"It strikes me as a pretty difficult thing to do. CEN is a government entity that helps with the promulgation of standards - it is a monopoly of sorts. In the US, the CPSC doesn't do that - we have private standard organizations that do that, although we advise them. So it's a different system and meshing those two together could prove difficult."

But the EU and US could consider developing similar product safety hazard guidelines, necessary when companies have to report product hazards and defects.

Hal Stratton, Chairman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission, met with EU counterparts in May 2004 to discuss ways of working together for the benefit of consumers on both sides of the Atlantic.

http://www.cpsc.gov/ http://www.cpsc.gov/

http://ec.europa.eu/comm/consumers/cons_safe/prod_safe/index_en.htm http://ec.europa.eu/comm/consumers/cons_safe/prod_safe/index_en.htm

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