Market Surveillance of Electrical Appliances Improves Safety for European Consumers

June 2, 2008 // Published as a news service by IHS

The first project picked lamps from the European 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 reports from these two projects show that market surveillance in the European Union (EU) protects consumers, but that more still needs to be done. The EC vowed to continue working with member states and industry to ensure that only safe appliances reach European citizens.

Günter Verheugen, EC vice president for enterprise and industry, said, "A lot has been done already to improve safety of products and therefore consumers' confidence in goods they purchase, but there is still room for improvement. The results of joint campaigns carried out by market surveillance authorities start to bear fruit and contribute to an even more effective EU-wide mechanism to protect consumers."

Meglena Kuneva, EC consumer commissioner, said, "Product safety is one of the key EU policies truly delivering results to consumers. I welcome the results of these projects. They show that investment in enhanced market surveillance is effective and I look forward to further boosting our co-operation with the member states and industry to make sure no stone is left unturned when it comes to targeting unsafe products."

Verheugen and Kuneva said they would call upon industry to discuss the results of these projects, reasons for the problems and possible remedies.

Joint projects
These two joint projects in the field of electrical appliances were carried out over the last two years by EU member states' market surveillance authorities under the Low Voltage Directive Administrative Cooperation (LVD ADCO) group.

These initiatives are supported by the Product Safety Enforcement Forum of Europe (PROSAFE), which is a network of regulatory agencies and market surveillance authorities across Europe aimed at sharing best practices in product safety enforcement.

Further initiatives are planned for the coming years.

Portable household lights
The lighting project looked at the compliance and safety aspects of portable lighting falling within the scope of the relevant European standard (EN 60598-1, par. 1.2.9: portable luminaires, and EN 60598-2-4: portable general-purpose luminaires). In practice, this encompasses standard lamps and desk lamps, including lighting with halogen lamps in as far as the bulb directly operates on the 230-240 V mains.

The main reason for focussing on lighting are the statistics from the low voltage directive (LVD) safeguard clauses and Rapid Alert System (RAPEX) notifications under the General Product Safety directive (GPSD), which show that lighting is the category of electrical appliances most frequently associated with risks of accidents or injuries (in 50% of the cases).

Inspectors specifically looked for non-compliant products when identifying the samples. Only 5% (11 out of 226 samples) showed neither administrative nor technical shortcomings based on targeted sampling. Shortcomings ranged from the lack of CE marking to technical faults, from lack of earthing to failing electric strength tests, from defects in cord anchorage to failing thermal tests. Whilst not causing immediate danger to consumers, the shortcomings were considered serious enough to require remedies.

The lighting project, launched in 2006, involved Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden. The project's final recommendations included:

• Improving knowledge about lighting requirements.
• Organising cross-border actions on a regular basis.
• Promoting smaller scale cross-border co-operation between two to five authorities planning similar actions.
• Improving information exchange.
• Reducing differences in the classification of the level of non-conformity.

Cord extension sets
Cord extension sets were chosen as the second subject for cross-border market surveillance action, first because they are widespread across European households. In addition, safety shortcomings can be severe, leading to damage of connected devices - for instance, due to a lack of earthing wires.

Countries involved in this project included Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Germany, Denmark, Spain, Finland, Iceland, Lithuania, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Malta, Poland, Sweden, Slovenia, Slovakia, and the U.K.

In total, 210 cord extension sets were tested and the results show that only one in six cord extension sets fully complied with the LVD and GPSD requirements. Although the non-compliant samples also include those that exhibit only administrative failures - for example, relating to faulty declarations of conformity or missing technical documentation - around 58% of the cord extension sets tested was considered sufficiently unsafe by the authorities to justify a sales ban.

Most frequently detected deficiencies included wrong shape and dimensions of plugs and sockets (50%), insufficient diameter of the cord (27%) and insufficient dielectric strength and resistance to ageing, temperature and fire (10%).

Recommendations by the panel of experts include a review of existing standards, increased targeted market surveillance by member state authorities as well as a review in the future to re-evaluate the level of non-compliance in the sector.

For further information, see IP/08/597 and the EU Consumer Affairs web site.

Source: European Commission.