This latest recall of Chinese made products, the third in little more than a month by Mattel, has prompted the Commission to undertake a safety review mechanism.

Meglena Kuneve, the EU’s consumer protection commissioner, has said that she is keen to use a two-month period to check all the links in the chain. The Commissioner says the recalls have proved that the Commission’s RAPID alert system has worked well. Information was exchanged quickly, authorities were alerted and products were withdrawn.

There are doubts about Mattel’s own product safety checks and seven different Chinese contractors involved in the manufacture of products have already ceased to be associated with Mattel.

Mattel has said its “voluntary” recall was a result of thorough investigation prompted by the first recall earlier in August. Consequently, several contractors are no longer manufacturing Mattel toys.

However, some members of the EU Parliament have said they are not entirely happy and feel that more should be done. It has also been suggested that the European CE toy safety symbol was being misused.

Evelyne Geghardt a socialist MEP believes there are serious questions about the system of selfregulation and the use of the CE marking. Gebhardt is calling for a proper debate and a review of safety measures, arguing that it is hard to believe that there are not many other dangerous products on the market bearing the CE marking.

Commissioner Kuneva was due to present her findings and conclusions on the safety stocktaking exercise by the end of October and ahead of the EU-China summit, due to be held by the end of November 2007.

Clearly, since 2006 a large amount of work has been done with China to improve product safety and no doubt more work will follow. This twomonth period of checking all the links in the chain is really to avoid any knee-jerk reactions, but at the same time to make sure all safety angles are covered.

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