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As products have become more complex in the digital age, the European Commission published a proposal for a new directive on liability of defective products in September 2022. This would revise the existing Product Liability Directive, adopted nearly 40 years ago in 1985. The proposal aims to bring the European Union's product liability regime up to speed with the digital age, circular economy business models and global value chains by ensuring that consumers receive compensation for defective products ...

Manufacturing and trade in firearms for civilian purposes employs around 150 000 people in the EU. In 2020, the Commission adopted a 2020-2025 action plan on firearms trafficking to help curb the illegal flows of firearms, and ammunition, while also strengthening the legal market. The adoption of Directive (EU) 2021/555 on control of the acquisition and possession of weapons in 2021was the first legislative outcome of the plan. In October 2022, the Commission presented a proposal for a regulation ...

Since 2004, the European Union has established mode-specific regulations for passenger rights in air, rail, waterborne, and road transport. Despite progress, challenges persist, affecting the quality of service and creating barriers for seamless travel. These challenges include insufficient passenger information, difficulties in asserting rights, disparity in enforcement, consistency issues from one mode to another, the absence of legal provisions for multimodal travel, and a lack of protection against ...

New technologies come with new risks, and the impact of cyber-attacks through digital products has increased dramatically in recent years. Consumers are increasingly falling victim to security flaws linked to digital products such as baby monitors, robo-vacuum cleaners, Wi-Fi routers and alarm systems. For businesses, the importance of ensuring that digital products in the supply chain are secure has become pivotal, considering three in five vendors have already lost money owing to product security ...

On 14 September 2022, the Commission proposed a regulation to ban products made using forced labour, including child labour, on the European Union (EU) internal market. The proposal covers all products made available on the EU market, whether made in the EU for domestic consumption and for export, or imported. It covers products of any type, including their components, from all sectors and industries. EU Member States would be in charge of enforcing its provisions, and their national authorities ...

On 28 July 2023, the European Commission adopted a proposal to revise EU toy safety legislation with a new regulation and repealing Directive 2009/48/EC. The proposal pursues two main objectives: a) achieving a higher level of child protection, including from the most harmful substances; and b) reducing the number of non-compliant and unsafe toys on the EU market. In relation to the first objective, the proposal extends the definition of health to children's psychological and mental health and to ...

This At A Glance - Study In Focus provides information on the proposed reform of the electricity market design which maintains crucial elements of the existing system to ensure continued efficient operation. The impact that changing the rules on longer-term contracts will have on consumer prices and investment will depend on the concrete language of proposed legislation as well as its ultimate implementation. Overall, neither the expected mode of impact of individual reform elements, let alone their ...

On 30 March 2023, the European Commission presented a proposal for a directive on common rules promoting the repair of goods. The proposed directive aims to mitigate current patterns of business and consumption, marked by frequent and premature replacement and discarding of goods. The proposal seeks to save costs for consumers and facilitate the development of a resource-efficient circular economy. The proposed directive would apply to the repair of goods within and outside the legal guarantee. In ...

In March 2023, the European Commission proposed a directive on promoting the repair of goods, which seeks to mitigate current business and consumption patterns marked by frequent and premature replacement and discarding of goods. In October 2023, the European Parliament's Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) adopted its report, aimed at strengthening the repair market. The report is due to be debated in plenary in November, with a view to setting Parliament's position for ...