TIE position on General Product Safety Regulation

The proposal for a General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) (2021/0170 (COD)) will be pivotal to ensuring that only safe products are available to consumers on the EU market.

As an industry revolving around children, safety is the main priority for the toy sector. Reputable toy manufacturers integrate safety into each stage of product development and meet the EU’s strict rules. However, they suffer from unfair competition from rogue traders who do not follow the same high standards and put children at risk by offering unsafe and otherwise non-compliant toys. To combat this, TIE – the voice of reputable toy manufacturers – proposes four significant improvements to the European Commission’s proposal :

1. Online marketplaces: close loopholes for unsafe products sold on online marketplaces, especially when sellers are untraceable or based outside the EU and the online marketplace is the only identifiable relevant party with a legal representative in the EU;

2. EU Safety Gate: ensure efficient communication between public authorities and economic operators to facilitate rapid action and target unsafe products;

3. Accident reporting: improve the proposal on accident reporting to make sure information provided is accurate and actually useful;

4. Digital labelling: promote digital labelling to provide relevant up-to-date information about the product to both consumers and market surveillance authorities.

Read the full position paper here: GPSR TIE position