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Relationship between the General Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC (GPSD) and other safety related directives

This page explains the relationship between the GPSD and the following sector specific directives:

For a general explanation of the GPSD, see our GPSD page.

For consumer products, the GPSD is either

  • entirely applicable if there are no other directives applicable to the product,
    •

or

  • partially applicable, where other directives also apply to the product.
    •

When a product is subject to other CE marking directives, the requirements of these take precedence over the corresponding requirements of the GPSD, leaving the remaining requirements of the GPSD still applicable. This usually means that the characteristics of the product are determined by the product specific directive(s) and not affected by the GPSD. However, the GPSD does place additional requirements that affect the actions of the supplier.

For clarity, the requirements of the GPSD can be categorised into:

  • Requirements for producers
    •
  • Requirements for distributors
    •
  • Obligations and powers of member state enforcement authorites
    •
  • Obligations for exchange of information (inter member state and EC)
    •
  • Other provisions
    •

On this page, only the first two categories are covered. The other requirements are applicable to member states' enforcement authorities and, therefore, do not directly affect the actions of suppliers.

The additional GPSD requirements for suppliers of consumer products, over and above those of the sector specific directives listed above, are summarised in the table below:

 

Article

Notes

Article 5.1, subparagraphs 3 and 4: identification of product

Products must be identified in order to enable recall etc. Although most products comply with this requirement, the sector specific directives generally don't explicitly require it.

Article 5.1, subparagraphs 3, 4 and 5: obligation for producers to follow up product safety after placing product on the market

Suppliers must take active steps to perform market testing, record complaints regarding safety issues, provide information to distributors concerning market surveillance, etc.

Article 5.3: obligation for producers to inform enforcement authorities of dangerous products and actions taken to prevent risks

Suppliers must inform the authorities if they become aware that the supplied products are un-safe.

Article 5.4: obligation for producers to co-operate with authorities

The supplier must co-operate with the enforcement authorities when they have supplied an un-safe product.

Articles 5.2, 5.3 and 5.4: obligations for distributor not to supply dangerous product, participate in the monitoring of products and in tracing dangerous products etc.

Sector specific directives do not place any requirements on distributors. The distributor must act within the limits of his activity in fulfilling the above requirements.

 

Back to the GPSD main page.