RAPEX has been put in place as an information system on dangerous products to promote the safety of consumers and the protection of health of consumers in EU Member States - mandatory for all the Member States.
The Slovak Republic started using RAPEX as of 1 May 2004. The Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic functions as the point of contact for the European Commission. Information on dangerous products is sent to the European Commission, not directly to Member States, in reporting a dangerous product there are strictly established deadlines which need to be necessarily complied with.
The aim of RAPEX is to:
– rapidly exchange information relating to measures and actions concerning consumer products, between the Member States and the Commission, to be taken due to a serious risk to the health and safety of consumers;
– notify the Member States and the Commission of the existence of a serious risk even before measures or actions are taken;
– obtain and distribute to all the Member States information relating to further developments based on the information exchanged by the Member States;
with a view to:
a) preventing delivery of products that pose a serious risk to the health and safety of consumers and, if necessary, withdrawing them from the market or from consumers;
b) contributing to monitoring for effectiveness and consistence of the market surveillance and the pursuit of activities in the Member States;
c) establishing a need and, if necessary, providing the basis for Community-level action;
d) contributing to consistent enforcement of the Community requirements for product safety and the proper functioning of the internal market.
The GPSD provisions, and the RAPEX procedure in particular, shall apply to non-food consumer products posing a serious risk to consumers in so far as there are no specific provisions with the same objective in Community legislation.
Products covered by RAPEX include: toys, domestic electric appliances, lighters, objects relating to child care, passenger cars, tyres, etc.
The measures relating to second-hand products which are sold by private persons and tailor-made products which pose a serious risk shall not be covered by RAPEX if a Member State that adopted a measure may conclude on the basis of the existing information that a product cannot appear in another Member State.
Activities under RAPEX since 1 May 2004
- the Slovak Republic joined RAPEX as of 1 May 2004
- the point of contact is Ministry of Economy of the Slovak Republic - Consumer Protection Department
- Ministry of Economy works with market regulatory authorities (Slovak Trade Inspection, Public Health Office)
- General Product Safety Directive 2001/95/EC is incorporated in the Consumer Protection Act
effective as of September 2004
- Ministry of Economy´s Decree on the procedure, contents and form of ensuring the system for rapid
exchange of information on the occurrence of a dangerous non-food product in the Slovak Republic
took effect 15 November 2004
Statistics on notifications under RAPEX – SR
- the number of notifications to RAPEX from 1 May 2004 to 31 December 2004: 28
- published in the system: 18 (electric appliances and toys)
the number of notification responses sent to the systemfrom 1 May 2004 to 31 December 2004: 149
