Online marketplaces issue still falling through the cracks

TIE’s reaction to the Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection’s vote on the General Product Safety Regulation

The European Parliament’s Committee on Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) failed to strengthen the Commission’s proposal on the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), thus failing to increase child safety. Today’s IMCO’s position misses the opportunity to ban rogue traders based outside the EU from selling dangerous toys and other unsafe products to European consumers on online marketplaces.

The new GPSR would have been the perfect opportunity to complement the Digital Services Act (DSA), also approved by IMCO today. Due to its horizontal focus, the DSA does not sufficiently address matters related to product safety. The current GPSR text does not include the right obligations for online marketplaces. Obligations that are needed especially when sellers are based outside Europe or are not traceable because, for instance, online marketplaces have not complied with the seller traceability requirements set out in the DSA.

We call on Member States and the European Parliament to tackle this in the final text to better protect our children against dangerous toys and to ensure that what is enforceable offline is also enforceable online.

Read here our position on the GPSR.