Press releases

Today the European Commission adopted the “Consumer Agenda”, its consumer policy strategy for the next five years. It lays down the Commission’s consumer policy objectives and will serve as guidance to include consumer interests in all policy areas. Focus areas are the green and digital transition as well as the post-COVID economic recovery.

The EU has announced concrete steps to better protect consumers against harmful chemicals − to which they are exposed night and day from multiple sources. That is the gist of the long-awaited Chemicals Strategy for Sustainability, published today by the EU Commission. The European Consumer Organisation BEUC, who has long been calling on the EU to tighten its grip on chemicals, judges the blueprint promising and urges the Commission to now follow through. The EU last updated its strategy for chemicals policy in 2001.

In 2019, more than 2,000 notifications of non-food products were made to the EU’s rapid alert system (Safety Gate) as failing safety requirements. Each notification may represent thousands of faulty products. Toys, motor vehicles and electrical appliances were the product groups with most notifications. The figure could well be an undercount, as many dangerous products are possibly not identified.