The Rapex

Rapex (Rapid Alert System for Non-Food Products) is a EU rapid alert system between the EU Commission and the Member States for all dangerous consumer products, with the exception of food, pharmaceutical and medical devices.

It has been created thanks to Directive 2001/95/EC on the General Product Safety and it allows the national authorities of every Member State to inform the authorities of the other Member States about dangerous products, so that they can take some steps to ensure consumers’ protection in a very rapid way. It allows to prevent risks to consumer’s health and safety and to take urgent measures around the whole EU territory against products entailing safety risks for consumers. This is how the Rapex system works: the competent national authorities report the presence of safety risks products to the Commission, (DG SANCO -  Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General), through a special body (called “the national contact point”) which is in charge of filling in a sample form containing the following information:

• the useful information in order to identify the product (name, kind, brand, description, image);
   

• description of the risk the product may entail, the current studies and research that have been carried out in order to examine the detected risks;
   

• the measures that might have already been taken;
   

• the information on the product’s distribution in the different States (i.e. different way of distribution employed);

Afterwards, the EC examine the report and in case the risk is confirmed (through the so called validation), it forwards all the related information to the other National Contact Points (situated in each country), spreading out the news via internet as well, weekly providing updates on dangerous products and on the latest laws and regulations that have been issued. The information are diffused to every Member State so that each of them can take the most appropriate measures, bans or restrictions to the sales or other necessary or useful measures. In case the product has been been distributed and diffused throughout one or more countries, the EU Commission can impose the Member State some specific measures to take, including the withdrawal of the product from the market, a rebuke or a public warn. Such decisions can last not longer than a year.  The enforcement of this system has been strengthened during the last years and it has brought to many important results, such as the definitive withdrawal of dangerous items from the market.   

The EU Commission publishes, at regular intervals, a list of the reports submitted to the Rapex System, accessible to the consumers at the following address: http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/dyna/ rapex/rapex_archives_en.cfm as well as the Weekly overview report of RAPEX notifications, where several kinds of dangerous products are described and reported.