EU, China and US in accord on toy safety standards

EU Consumer Commissioner, Meglena Kuneva, the US Chairman of the Consumer Product Safety Commission, Nancy Nord, and the Chinese vice-Minister of AQSIQ, Wei Chuanzhong, met in Brussels on the 17 November 2008 for the first high-level trilateral summit on product safety.

The high level meeting was intended to send a strong political signal of the determination of all sides to keep product safety at the top of the international political agenda, recognising that open markets can only be built on strong and secure management of global product supply chains.

The tripartite meeting helped step up EU-China-US co-operation. First, a revised Memorandum of Understanding strengthening bilateral co-operation between the EU and China to enforce product safety standards and strengthen cooperation and exchange of information on food safety was signed by Commissioner Kuneva, Commissioner Vassiliou and vice-Minister Wei prior to the high level meeting. Then, trilateral priority areas for action were agreed and set out in a joint press statement, including on product traceability, co-operation by all three parties on toy safety standards, expertise exchange and joint enforcement actions.

Finally, discussions focused on action to strengthen information exchange between the partners on alerts and recalls – in particular using new US product safety legislation which will allow more open information exchange on product recalls and dangerous products.

The activities were part of a broader Product Safety Week, which was hosted by the Commission from 17-21 November 2008.

European Commission: Press Release, IP/08/1717: Consumers: European Commission hosts first high level EU-China-US product safety summit http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/1717&format=PDF&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

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