Malta hosted the Prosaft (Product Safety Forum of Europe) General Assembly for European market surveillance officers. The general assembly meets twice a year to discuss issues related to market surveillance and product safety. This meeting will focus on Joint Action 2016.

Coordinated by Prosafe and funded by the EU Commission, this brings together market surveillance authorities to focus on specific product areas of baby carriers and cots, electrical toys, hair straighteners as electrical appliances, as well as impact drills and climbing equipment. These products were selected on the basis of their risk profile.

The joint action focuses on testing these products and taking the necessary enforcement actions should tests reveal that products do not comply with EU standards. Member States met in Malta to discuss test results and common issues related to products that have entered the market or which may be borderline cases. The meeting also served to discuss and share ideas with a view to improving market surveillance activities across Europe.

Parliamentary Secretary for Consumer Protection and Valletta 2018 Deo Debattista said product safety was one of the key points on the government’s agenda. He said we should not learn about product safety by accident; people’s safety is the highest law. He also spoke on the importance of such initiatives, so that product safety in Member States would improve and continue to comply with European standards.

Malta, through the Market Surveillance Directorate of the Technical Regulations Division within the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority, has been very active in this Joint Action. It participated in all product groups and this has maximised knowledge sharing with other Member States and the authority’s testing capacities. The MCCAA’s Market Surveillance Officers also led a number of these product groups within this joint action. The authority has already taken measures on the results that have been obtained and has ordered the recall or ban on the sale of a number of products found to be non-compliant and which pose a serious or high risk to users. Knowledge sharing and exchange of information within this joint action has helped the MSD achieve higher rates of overall product compliance with the EU legislation requirements.

Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority
Office for Consumer Affairs
Mizzi House,
National Road,
Blata l-Bajda
HMR 9010

Freephone: 8007 4400
Tel: 2395 2000
Enquiries: info@mccaa.org.mt
Consumer complaints: fair.trading@mccaa.org.mt
Website: www.mccaa.org.mt

MCCAA office hours for the public:
Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 12.30pm

European Consumer Centre Malta
(For complaints against traders in other EU states)

47A, South Street,
Valletta.
VLT 1101

Monday to Friday from 8.30am to 3pm.

Tel: 2122 1901
E-mail: ecc.malta@gov.mt

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.