RAPEX (Rapid Alert System for non-food consumer products)

RAPEX is the EU rapid alert system for dangerous consumer products – with the exception of food, pharmaceutical and medical devices, which are covered by other mechanisms. The legal basis of the RAPEX system is the General Product Safety Directive (2001/95/EC).

The objective of RAPEX is to ensure the rapid exchange of information among Member States and the Commission on measures taken in the Member States to prevent, restrict or impose specific conditions on the marketing or use of consumer products by reason of serious risk to the health and safety of consumers. Each country participating in the RAPEX system nominates a single national RAPEX Contact Point which participates in the exchange of information on dangerous products with EC, if dangerous products are found on their market. Both measures ordered by national authorities and measures taken voluntarily by producers and distributors are reported by RAPEX. 30 countries currently participate in the system. The participating countries are all the European Union countries and the EEA countries: Iceland , Liechtenstein and Norway.

Every Friday, the Commission publishes a weekly overview of the dangerous products reported by the national authorities (the RAPEX notifications) on their website: www.ec.europa.eu/rapex. This weekly overview gives you all information on the product, the possible danger and the measures that were taken by the reporting country.

 _____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Disclaimer

"First published in English as

Weekly overview reports of RAPEX notificationsby

 the European Commission's Directorate-General for Health and Consumers 
on the European Union's official website 'Europa' through the 
EU Rapid Alert System for non-food consumer products (RAPEX)