Applicable from December 13, the new European Regulation (EU) 2023/988 of May 10, 2023 relating to general product safety modernizes the European Union regulatory framework in this area. It aims in particular at better information for citizens, progress in the application of regulations, adaptation to the digital market as well as more effective recall procedures.
The new European text responded to growing concern about online commerce: according to Safety Gate, the European Union's alert system on dangerous products, 31% of warnings issued concern products that have been sold over the internet .
« Thanks to the new rules, companies will only be able to sell products that are safe for consumers and unsafe products will be traceable on the global market and removed from the market », welcomed Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice of the European Commission, in June 2023.
The books, “ safe by nature »
The product safety requirement is based on Article 5 of the Regulation, which states quite clearly: “ Economic operators only place or make available on the market safe products. »
Manufacturers of products placed on the market must therefore comply with a certain number of rules, detailed in Article 9 of the regulation. So, “[a]Before placing their products on the market, manufacturers carry out an internal risk analysis and draw up technical documentation containing at least a general description of the product and its essential characteristics relevant for the assessment of its safety ».
They are also required to keep this documentation up to date, to apply a type, batch, series number or other identification element to their product, readable by the consumer, as well as their name, company name or brand. registered, their postal and electronic contact address on the product or, when this is not possible, on its packaging or within its documentation.
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The book has been recognized as a “ inherently safe product » by the regulation, under the action of the National Publishing Union and the Federation of European Publishers: publishers are therefore required to provide a simple “ general description of the product and its relevant essential characteristics» : « This can be a summary of technical descriptions such as the manufacturing file when there is one. », Specifies the National Publishing Union.
This documentation must be kept available to the authorities for a period of 10 years, but does not have to be communicated to booksellers and other retailers. According to the employers' union, certain retailers, including Amazon, “began asking publishers for information beyond these simplified obligations”, which they therefore have no obligation to provide.
The book itself must present a unique identifier (the SNE cites the EAN and the edition rank), readable by the consumer, as well as the contact details of the publisher.
Different obligations, depending on the products
Of course, manufacturers are not the only ones affected by the regulation: agents, importers, distributors and even economic operators in the context of distance selling must also comply with obligations. The objective being that the chain of responsibilities is not broken, or that an operator escapes the European framework when it is not itself established in the Union.
Economic operators linked to digital book readers will therefore have to be attentive to other obligations, to which book publishers do not have to respond: for example, they will take into account “appropriate cybersecurity features necessary to protect the product against external influences, including malicious third parties, where such influence could impact the security of the product, including potential loss of interconnection“, as the regulation underlines…
For the very specific case of toy books, the National Publishing Union indicates that the 2009 Toys Directive still applies, under conditions established by guidance document No. 9 relating to this directive, even if -this has no binding value.
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This type of work is far from being anecdotal in the field of product safety, because it is widely represented on product recall platforms, such as Rappel Conso (French) and Safety Gate (European). Recently, a mouse book from the Soft Friend baby brand, sold by La Grande Récré, but alsoMy magical bath book(Minedition) orUnicorn loves colors(1, 2, 3 Sun!) were thus recalled, for problems ranging from the risk of suffocation to environmental risk.
Photography: theMonstrous Book of Monsterstaken from the universeHarry Pottercreated by JK Rowling (illustration, ActuaLitté, CC BY SA 2.0)
By Antoine Oury
Contact : [email protected]
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