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Electrical appliances: Market surveillance efforts by Member States'
authorities result in improved safety for consumers 

Reference:  IP/08/615    Date:  21/04/2008 

IP/08/615

Brussels, 21 April 2008

Electrical appliances: Market surveillance efforts by Member States'
authorities result in improved safety for consumers

The European Commission has received the final reports on two projects
aimed at enhancing the safety of two categories of consumer electrical
products: portable household lights and cord extension sets. These
cross-border market surveillance actions found a significant number of
non-compliant products on which action was taken and concluded that more
needs to be done to further safeguard the safety of European consumers.
The first project picked lamps from the Community market already
identified as potentially non-compliant and investigated the nature of
their safety deficiencies. The second looked at cord extension sets and
sought to determine the level of non-compliance in an area already
identified as problematic. The results, together with the 2007 RAPEX
report just presented by the Commission, show that market surveillance
in the EU protects consumers, but also that more still needs to be done.
The Commission continues to work with the Member States and industry to
ensure that only safe appliances continue to reach the European citizen.

Vice President and Commissioner for Enterprise and Industry Günter
Verheugen said "A lot has been done already to improve safety of
products and therefore consumer's confidence in goods they purchase but
there is still a room for improvement. The results of joint campaigns
carried out by market surveillance authorities start to bear fruit and
contribute to an even more effective EU wide mechanism to protect
consumers."

Meglena Kuneva, EU Consumer Commissioner said, "Product safety is one of
the key EU policies truly delivering results to consumers. I welcome the
results of these projects. They show that investment in enhanced market
surveillance is effective and I look forward to further boosting our
co-operation with the Member States and industry to make sure no stone
is left unturned when it comes to targeting unsafe products."

Mr Verheugen and Mrs Kuneva said they would call the industry in to
discuss the results of these projects, the reasons for the problems and
the possible remedies.

Joint projects

The two "joint actions" in the field of electrical appliances were
carried out over the last two years by EU Member States' market
surveillance authorities under the LVD ADCO (Low Voltage Directive
Administrative Cooperation) group. One project focussed on lighting,
while the second addressed cord extension sets. The latter received
financial support from the European Commission. Further initiatives are
planned for the coming years.

These initiatives are coordinated by the LVD ADCO group with the support
of PROSAFE; the "Product Safety Enforcement Forum of Europe", which is a
network of regulatory agencies and market surveillance authorities
across Europe aimed at sharing best practices in product safety
enforcement.

Portable household lights

The project looked at the compliance and safety aspects of portable
lighting (i.e. lamps, which, in normal use, can be moved from one place
to another whilst connected to the supply) falling within the scope of
the relevant European standard (EN 60598, part 1, par. 1.2.9: portable
luminaires, and EN 60598-2-4: portable general-purpose luminaires). In
practice this encompasses standard lamps and desk lamps, including
lighting with halogen lamps in as far as the bulb directly operates on
the 230-240 V mains.

The main reason for focussing on lighting is the statistics of the LVD
safeguard clauses and RAPEX notifications under the General Product
Safety directive (GPSD), which show that lighting is the category of
electrical appliances most frequently associated with risks of accidents
or injuries (in 50% of the cases). 

Only 5% (11 out of 226 samples) showed no shortcomings (either
administrative or technical), with targeted sampling: inspectors
specifically looked for non-compliant products when identifying the
samples. Shortcomings ranged from the lack of CE marking to technical
faults, from lack of earthing to failing electric strength tests, from
defects in cord anchorage to failing thermal tests. Whilst not causing
immediate danger to consumers, the shortcomings were considered serious
enough to require remedies.

The project, which was launched in 2006, involved Austria, Belgium,
Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, the
Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. The group's
final recommendations include: improving knowledge of the requirements,
organising cross border actions on a regular basis, promoting smaller
scale cross border co-operation between 2 to 5 authorities planning
similar actions, improving information exchange and reducing differences
in the classification of the level of non-conformity.

Cord extension sets

Cord extension sets were chosen as a subject for cross-border market
surveillance action because they are widespread across European
households, and safety shortcomings can be severe leading to damage of
connected devices, for instance due to a lack of earthing wires.
Countries involved in the project included Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria,
Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Iceland,
Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Malta, Poland, Sweden,
Slovenia, Slovakia, and the UK. 

In total, 210 cord extension sets were tested and the results show that
only one in six cord extension sets fully complied with the LVD and GPSD
requirements. Although the non-compliant samples also include those
which exhibit only administrative failures, e.g. relating to faulty
declarations of conformity or missing technical documentation, around
58% of the cord extension sets tested was considered sufficiently unsafe
by the authorities to justify a sales ban. 

Most frequently detected deficiencies included wrong shape and
dimensions of plugs and sockets (50%), insufficient diameter of the cord
(27%) and insufficient dielectric strength and resistance to ageing,
temperature and fire (10%).Recommendations by the panel of experts
include a review of existing standards, increased targeted market
surveillance by Member State authorities as well as a review in the
future to re-evaluate the level of non-compliance in the sector.

For further information please visit:

  HYPERLINK
"http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/597&forma
t=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en"  IP/08/597 

  HYPERLINK "http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/index_en.htm" 
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/index_en.htm 

  HYPERLINK
"http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/citizen/my_safety/danger_products_en.htm"
 http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/citizen/my_safety/danger_products_en.htm 

 





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