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

The European Commission 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, showed 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.