Safety Gate: European Commission report highlights electrical appliances and equipments in top three list of dangerous non-food products

In April 2022, the European Commission published its annual report on the Safety Gate, the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products. In short, the annual report covers the alerts notified during 2021 and the actions taken by national authorities in response.

In 2021, authorities of the participating countries of the Safety Network exchanged 2,142 alerts through the system. For the first time, the highest number of alerts was notified in the category “motor vehicles” category, followed by “toys” and “electrical appliances and equipment”. The annual reports highlights that the most common problems reported for electrical appliances and equipment related to the exposure of live parts and overheating issues. 

The report shows that in 2021, the overall use of the rapid alert system network grew among its 30 participating countries (EU27 plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway), keeping consumers safe from dangerous products.

With the publication of the annual report on the Safety Gate, the Commission also launched a new e-surveillance tool called “web crawler” that will help national authorities detect the online offers of unsafe products signaled in the Safety Gate. This tool will identify and automatically list any of these offers, allowing enforcement authorities to track down the provider and order the effective withdrawal of these offers. It will thus help to harmonise the current fragmented approach and address the challenges of monitoring the online sales of dangerous products.

For more information, see the Commission's press release.