Moving from Product Safety Pledge to Consumer Law Pledge

Moving from Product Safety Pledge to Consumer Law Pledge

The Product Safety Pledge was initially signed in June 2018 by 4 online marketplaces. Since then 11 companies have joined the initiative (Allegro, AliExpress, Amazon, bol.com, CDiscount, eBay, EMAG, Etsy, JOOM, Rakuten and Wish.com). It consists of twelve commitments relevant for product safety area. The negotiations of the Pledge with the first four signatories took around two years.
Signatories of this Pledge report twice a year on their commitments. From these reports it is apparent that the Pledge clearly improved the consumer protection against dangerous products sold by third party sellers on online marketplaces. According to the fifth progress report (covering the period of December 2020 to May 2021):
 signatories have removed 75% of identified product listings within two working days following governmental notices.
 Moreover, within the same period 97% of identified product listings were removed within two working days found through the monitoring of public recall websites, such as the EU Safety Gate.
 Signatories have also made important steps towards on implementing other commitments such as on trader education, on recalls or using new technologies for the detection of unsafe products.
Based on previous positive experience DG JUST is now exploring the potential extension of the Product Safety Pledge. The idea was discussed also during the first Annual Digital Consumer Event on 25 November 2021, where stakeholders expressed a clear view that this extension should firstly consider involving a wider group of stakeholders, notably consumer organizations to this cooperation mechanism.

We have started discussing this approach with the current signatories of the Pledge, and we also invited to the discussions the main EU level consumer organisations. In addition, we are also discussing with the signatories how to deepen this voluntary cooperation mechanism on product safety, and to update the current commitments and consider new commitments in light of the changes foreseen under the DSA and GPSR proposals. Finally, we are also exploring the potential of extending this cooperation to other, more horizontal consumer law issues such as on enforcement or online fairness.
For further clarifications, please feel free to contact András Zsigmond: Andras.ZSIGMOND@ec.europa.eu