The European Commission published its proposals for nine industry sectors in order to ensure better product safety. The sectors concerned are electrical and electronic products, lifts, measuring instruments, civil explosives, pyrotechnic articles and equipment for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.

The changes made to the nine directives presented by the Commission are regarding the alignment relate to definitions (for example “manufacturer”, “making available on the market”, “CE marking”), the obligations of economic operators, traceability requirements, conformity assessment bodies and procedures, CE marking and so on. The Commission already launched an information campaign on CE marking in June 2010. The sectors concerned are electrical and electronic products, lifts, measuring instruments, civil explosives, pyrotechnic articles and equipment for use in potentially explosive atmospheres.

The provisions proposed are being aligned with model provisions developed at EU level to overcome divergences in EU law which make life hard for businesses. In the future, producers, importers and distributors will profit from uniform trading conditions. At the same time this process will further improve the safety of products on sale in the EU by strengthening compliance procedures and make it easier to keep non-compliant products off the market.

The proposals seek to improve the market surveillance. Customs officers can now better check the safety of products using more effective tools. In addition, Member States can improve the supervision of monitoring bodies that check the conformity of products with EU law, for example ensuring that the CE marking has been properly applied by manufacturers.