Summary
The General Product Safety Directive (GPSD), originally adopted in 1992 and amended in 2001, covers the safety of products intended to be sold to consumers within the European Union. The scope and requirements are broad and horizontal, as it is a “catch-all” directive covering products and related aspects that are not otherwise regulated in EU legislation. Instead of harmonizing national requirements across Europe as is the case for many other areas, the GPSD recognizes the validity of separate national legislation for product safety. However, a new element in the recently amended GPSD, 2001/95/EC, is the use of European (EN) standards which “give presumption of conformity” with the GPSD across the EU. A first list of EN standards was published in April 2004, with more to follow.