The Commission of the European Union (EU) has released statistics on notices of unsafe consumer products that have been processed through the EU’s rapid information system (RAPEX) for the year ending December 31, 2014.
According to the Commission’s report, 2153 notifications of products posing a serious risk to health and safety were processed through the RAPEX system during 2014, the highest annual number of recorded notifications on record. The 2014 notification total represents a nearly nine percent increase over 2013’s 1981 notifications, and a 38 percent increase over 2011’s 1556 notifications.
In past years, the Commission has attributed increases in notifications to the “increased circulation of unsafe products,” but also to “vigilant and proactive” efforts for enforcement authorities in EU Member States to protect consumer safety through the removal of unsafe products from the market.
Of the 2153 notifications of products processed through the RAPEX system during the year as presenting a serious risk to consumers, 650 (30 percent) were related to toys, with an additional 530 (25 percent) related to clothing, textiles and fashion items, and 217 (10 percent) related to electrical appliances and equipment. There were also 194 notifications related to motor vehicles (nine percent), and 81 notifications (four percent) related to childcare articles and children’s equipment.
Regarding the country of origin identified in connection with products posing a serious safety risk, almost two-thirds of all notifications (64 percent) were related to products originating from China, including Hong Kong. 14 percent of unsafe products originated in EU Member States, while 12 percent failed to identify any country of origin.
View the complete text of the EU Commission’s 2014 annual report on RAPEX statistics.
View a colorful infographic depicting highlights from the year’s data.
Photo by rust.bucket 
