Public consultation on the Internal Market for goods – enforcement and compliance

Today the European Commission published a public consultation on the evaluation of the market surveillance provisions of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 and on actions to enhance enforcement and compliance in the Single Market for goods.

The aim of this public consultation is to collect stakeholders' feedback on:

• the relevance, reasons and consequences of the problem of product non-compliance in the Internal Market for goods.
• the options available to tackle the problem.
• the impact of those options.
• the issue of subsidiarity.
• whether action at EU level would produce clear benefits over and above that at the Member State level in terms of scale and effectiveness.

The public consultation will also provide evidence to assess the extent to which the provisions on market surveillance laid down in Chapter III of Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products and repealing Regulation (EEC) No 339/93, have been effective and efficient, relevant (given the needs and its objectives), coherent (both internally and with other EU policy interventions) and achieved EU added-value.

The consultation consists of an online questionnaire that is available in 23 official languages of the EU. A background document providing more details is available.

It will run until 31 October 2016.

With this consultation the Commission seeks views from all interested parties and in particular from national market surveillance authorities as well as business representatives/organisations.

Access the questionnaire

Background information

This initiative was announced in the Single Market Strategy adopted by the Commission on 28 October 2015 and should be set in the context of the fourth priority policy area to be tackled under President Juncker’s Agenda for Jobs, Growth, Fairness and Democratic Change, i.e. a deeper and fairer Internal Market with a strengthened industrial base.

The EU regulatory framework for goods broadly consists of rules for agricultural and food products on the one hand, and non-food products on the other. This document concerns non-food products (which hereinafter are also referred to as 'industrial products') subject to EU legislation based on Art. 114 of TFEU. In this area the Single Market rests on two planks:

• the existence of product requirements (notably, but not exclusively, in relation to human health and safety) harmonised at EU level.
• that compliant products can then circulate anywhere across the EU and to the countries of the European Economic Area (EEA).

The Single Market can only function well and be fair for people and businesses if all market operators play by the rules.

EU harmonised legislation covers the great majority of industrial products such as machinery, radio equipment, electrical and electronic devices, toys and many others. The aim of these rules is to protect European citizens from health, safety, environmental and other risks and to improve the competitiveness of businesses by eliminating unjustified barriers to trade. It is therefore essential that such EU legislation is correctly implemented by everyone on the ground to maintain the highest level of protection and to safeguard the competitiveness of businesses across the EU.

Compliance with EU legislation on non-food products is checked during market surveillance activities, the general principles of which are laid down in Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 setting out the requirements for accreditation and market surveillance relating to the marketing of products. In addition, most EU harmonised legislation on non-food products and Directive 2001/95/EC contain market surveillance provisions.

Practical information

Organisations must register in the Transparency Register before they begin to answer the questions. The submissions of non-registered organisations will be published separately from those of registered ones as the input of individuals.

Received contributions will be published on the internet in aggregated form in a consultation summary. Depending on your answer to the specific privacy question, your text-based contributions (replies to open questions) may be quoted in the report under your name, anonymously or only be published in aggregated form.

This consultation takes place in accordance with the general framework related to the protection of personal data.

For detailed information on how the personal data included in the replies will be handled, please see the privacy statement.