Not long ago, the EU was planning to relax its monitoring of product safety, taking it away from consumer protection authorities and assigning it to a weaker surveillance system aimed at work equipment.
But with the recalls of toys by Mattel and others, along with other evidence of health and safety risks from Chinese products, officials at the European Commission, the union's executive arm, are taking a second look at whether the bloc's safety regulations are adequate for both companies and the bodies that regulate them.
Meglena Kuneva, the European consumer affairs commissioner, and a vocal group of consumer advocates from the European Parliament are not only lobbying against limiting her purview, but are also challenging the argument of toy manufacturers that the largely self-regulating system governing product safety is adequate for the 27 nations and 490 million people who live in the countries of the EU.
Just days after the latest Mattel recall, Kuneva announced a two-month review to decide whether she needs greater powers to police imports from China.
The high-profile toy recall, she said, has exposed gaping holes in the European system of authorizing imports, which relies on manufacturers to police themselves by testing their own products to ensure they comply with union safety measures.
The union has an established mechanism that allows national authorities to share information routinely about safety breaches. But as in the Mattel case in the US, the onus is often on European manufacturers to expose product defects. Critics of the current system also argue that the attraction of low-cost production in China has encouraged some foreign manufacturers to cut corners.
"The reaction of Mattel and Disney really is exposing the deep flaws that exist in the system of testing, monitoring and quality assurance," said Richard Howitt, a British member of the European parliament who is the body's spokesman on corporate social responsibility.
redundant
"These companies claim to have codes of conduct covering environmental standards, health and safety," he said. "The fact that they are now being forced to send monitors into shops shows how redundant all these promises were."
Beyond improving the system of regulation in Europe, some European officials and analysts say the union must focus more energy on monitoring practices on the factory floors of China itself.
"Companies are not afraid of being punished if they don't apply standards in factories in China," said Dwight Justice of the International Trade Union Confederation, who has studied labor practices among toy producers in China.
Like the US, the EU is considering requiring toy manufacturers to have all their new products tested in independent laboratories -- a move that would add to costs. And while some European manufacturers have resisted the temptation to shift nearly all their production to Asia, Europe is like the US in that it imports about 70 percent of its toys from abroad, mostly from China.
Toy Industries of Europe, the association that represents large manufacturers, including Mattel Europe, Hasbro Europe and Hornby, argues that self-regulation is the only option when the volume of goods is so large.
"I think there are very good systems in place," Anne Starkie-Alves, secretary general of the European toy association said.
Beyond introducing tougher measures for toy manufacturers, the EU is also considering broader inspections and monitoring by government officials before goods ranging from DVD players to washing machines are given the "CE label," which confirms that a product is up to European standards.
Peter Mandelson, Europe's top trade official, warned in an interview that any more high-profile safety problems would "prompt growing calls for intervention from the European Commission."
"If the EU doesn't take defensive measures when they are justified," he said, "we will risk encouraging a backlash against China's trade growth. Given the mood in Europe, the burden of proof is shifting to China to demonstrate that it is trading fairly and that its goods are safe."
made in china
Last year there were 924 notifications of dangerous products in the EU, 57 percent of them prompted by government action, 41 percent by the companies themselves and 2 percent by a mixture of both. Of all the imported products deemed unsafe in Europe, 48 percent were made in China.
European consumer safety officials said they were pushing the Chinese to improve safety standards and that the union's legislation on product safety was robust and effective. But they acknowledge that enforcement and oversight by regulators and companies is difficult to achieve, because toy factories are in China and because of the enormous scale of China's manufacturing.
Beyond depending on manufacturers, the EU relies on a monitoring system called Rapex, under which national authorities circulate alerts to officials in other countries if a manufacturer recalls a product or officials discover unsafe toys.
If a breach of regulations is serious enough, officials in each country will contact suppliers of defective goods or intervene to take the goods off store shelves. In extreme cases, the European Commission itself can force products from the market, but it has done so only twice.
One case involved toys containing phthalates, chemicals that may adversely affect human reproduction or development; the other concerned novelty cigarette lighters that often look like toys and are potentially dangerous to small children.
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