On April 15, the European Parliament at the Plenary Session in Strasbourg adopted the legislative motion on the Consumer Product Safety Package together with the obligatory marking of the country of manufacture -“Made in”. All amendments submitted by the opponents of the new regulations were rejected with 419 votes.
This decision of the EP – undoubtedly advantageous for consumers – must be approved and implemented by the European Commission (hopefully as soon as possible).
The incoherent regulations existing so far enable introduction on the EU market products (including textiles and clothing) which do not correspond to the basic requirements allowing their safe use by the European consumers. Also, the marking of the country of origin – “Made in” is not obligatory and it depends on a good will of the importer/manufacturer. A lot of examples from the European market proved that low quality products which resulted to be hazardous in usage, contained toxic chemical substances and were a threat to the consumers’ health. In majority, they had no “Made in” marking.
For many years, the coalition composed, among others, of European manufacturers and European branch organisations has been intensively working on implementation of the new regulation which would stop the marketing on the EU territory the low quality products threatening consumers’ life and health, which have been breaking the principles of fair competition. The Gdynia Cotton Association was taking part actively in those works, collaborating with the Polish EP Members, Ministry of Economy as well as with European organisations of textile branch (Eurocoton), presenting reasons for the need of change of regulations on safety of textile-clothing products and the principles of marking them.