Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, holds a press conference after Parliament set its position on new rules to decrease the number of unsafe toys sold in the EU and protect children more robustly from toy-related risks. This transcription is the result of an automatic process. Please check against delivery.

Strasbourg

press conference

consumer product safety (T)

WALSMANN, Marion (EPP, DE)

Press conference by Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, on the safety of toys

https://api.multimedia.europarl.europa.eu/documents/20125/75315132/1709897785480_I254353Chapters%5BSD-EN%5D.srt

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, Ladies and gentlemen, to those of you here in the room and also online, toy safety is a top priority for us. Today's vote sends a clear message when it comes to child protection. As you know, the majority has been adopted by an overwhelming majority of 603 votes, with just five votes against and 15 abstentions.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, We've had negotiations over recent months. It's been a very swift procedure. The commission proposal came out in on the 18th of July 2023, and we now have the Parliament position. So over recent months I have been guided by the objective of ensuring that we had objective coherence and up to date rules on toy safety.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, So why is it a regulation? We have had a directive and we are now moving over to a regulation. The reason for that is that differences in implementation in different member states were to be prevented. We wanted to have greater consistency and that is also in line with what member States wanted to see but it's also in line with the revision of the general product safety regulations, because again, that's quite recently adopted.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, So we seem to have had a broad majority supporting this approach. There were a few colleagues, especially from the left and green sides of the spectrum, who had a slightly different approach. They had tried to use this regulation for other objectives, but we do now have a Parliament position and that shows that both of our targets are compatible, ensuring that toys are safety and at the same time protecting against chemicals that could be dangerous to health.

paragraph-5 So we need a high level of protection for children, but at the same time, we don't want to overburden industry in particular small or medium sized enterprise as we've managed to achieve that with chemicals. We have some generic bans on damaging substances which have been extended.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, We do need to ensure that where we have bans or restrictions, that is on a scientific basis. So we need to draw on the expertise of the agency and the commission and not arbitrarily reduce limit values or banned substances unnecessarily.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, Another important point that we've managed to achieve was that small and medium sized enterprises should have sufficient support. In particular given the new digital product passport that will be introduced.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, As regards the product passport. We have also ensured that intellectual property will be protected. All of these changes will very much improve child safety and will also ensure that manufacturers and traders do not face unreasonable burdens.

SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, This report will certainly improve the safety of toys. We will reduce bureaucracy. We will give businesses legal certainty and very importantly, we will always ensure that when it comes to product safety, we ensure that citizens can trust European toys. And I'm willing to take any questions you may have.

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SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, answering

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SOUNDBITE (Original), Marion WALSMANN (EPP, DE), rapporteur, -