Services Standards: Defining the Core Consumer Elements ... - ANEC

Hans-W. Micklitz
of the New Approach type directives refer directly and explicitly to ANEC. In
essence ANEC’s role results from its status as an Associate (member) of CEN,
Cooperating Partner of CENELEC and full member of ETSI. Although each of
these memberships grants ANEC the right, inter alia, to nominate consumer
experts to technical committees, the principal means of participation – at least in
CEN/CENELEC – and the principal right to influence in the governance of the
organisations, lies through and with the national standards interests.
Consumer safety has already gained ground since 1985. The European
Commission was originally convinced that it would be possible to solve safety
issues by way of technical standardisation as well. The “essential requirements”
to be developed under New Approach type directives were regarded as a
sufficient means to take consumer safety into consideration. The product liability
directive 85/374/EEC 33 , adopted in the same year, was regarded as a sufficient
means to protect consumers against personal injuries and damage to personal
goods. These essential requirements were said to lay down mandatory rules
which set a binding framework for the development of safety-related technical
standards. Not astonishingly, the series of New Approach type directives,
mostly designed to deal with industrial products, formulated different safety
requirements, as they were designed to the products in question. The so-called
“machine directive” 34 reached beyond industrial products and addressed the
consumer sphere, as certain products could be equally used in the industrial
and the private environment.
After a long lasting debate, the European Community adopted in 1992 Directive
92/59/EEC on General Product Safety, which has been revised by Directive
2001/95/EC 35 . The General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) is meant to
function as a safety net, i.e. it applies only in cases where the New Approach
type directives do not contain more specific safety requirements. The GPSD
relies on the concept of so-called foreseeable use under which the level of
safety constitutes a balance between the producer’s right to market his products
all over the Community and the consumer’s right to health and safety. The legal
formula is that both rights are only protected as far as they are legitimate 36 . The
true importance of the GPSD, however, lies in its strong impact on the
establishment of an efficient post-market control management, which applies to
33 OJ L 210, 7.8.1985, 29.
34 Directive 2006/42/EC on machinery, and amending Directive 95/16/EC, OJ L 157,
9.6.2006, 24.
35 OJ L 11, 15.1.2002, 4.
36 See for more details, Joerges/Falke/Micklitz/Brüggemeier, Die Sicherheit von
Konsumgütern und die Entwicklung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, 1988.
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