Outgoing French Presidency suggests coping mechanisms regarding online product safety rules
The French Presidency suggests three approaches for coordinating the Digital Services Act and General Product Safety Regulation to safeguard online consumers. Option 1 proposes aligning the regulations with detailed sectorial approaches, placing the burden on vendors. Option 2 holds online marketplaces responsible for flagged products on the Safety Gate. Option 3 suggests a balanced approach with targeted product verifications. All options aim to avoid general monitoring obligations, emphasizing consumer safety, physical integrity, and health in online product offerings.
The Digital Services Act (DSA) is meant to have a horizontal approach to regulating all online platforms while the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR) aims for a sectorial approach. According to Euractiv, the French Presidency provided three ways in which the DSA and the GPSR could interact to protect consumers’ safety, physical integrity and health.
- Option 1: The GPSR is strictly aligned with the DSA, adding no extraneous obligations except for more detailed sectorial approaches. This places the burden on the vendors’ shoulders to verify that online products are not flagged as dangerous on the EU Safety Gate, a rapid alert system for non-food products. Marketplaces only need to check if the vendors have verified their products.
- Option 2: Online marketplaces are directly responsible for checking if the offered products are flagged on the Safety Gate. If vendors do not recall the products that have been flagged, it is up to online marketplaces to recall them. This option would be incompatible with the prohibition of general monitoring obligations in the DSA texts.
- Option 3: A more balanced approach would be for online marketplaces to make targeted verifications of the products offered online and make ‘best efforts’ to verify whether they are flagged as not. This latter process could be automated.
The provisions advise against the introduction of a general monitoring obligation.
Source: Euractiv
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