Notifications of dangerous products from European Union countries in the RAPEX as an e-service

Abstract

The Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (RAPEX) may be considered as a type of e-service, which combines e-administration, e-education and e-health. The RAPEX enables quick exchange of information between national authorities of the European Union (EU) countries on measures taken against products posing a risk to consumers health and safety. In the period 2005–2016 the notifications in the RAPEX related mainly to products originated from China (57%), however, notifications to products from EU countries accounted for 18% of all notifications. Therefore, the goal of the study was to examine, which product categories from EU countries were most commonly submitted in the RAPEX and which was the dependence between product category and origin country, year, risk level, product user, submitting country, risk type and adopted measures. There were cluster analysis and scatterplots using Statistica 12 and pivot tables using Excel applied. The largest number of notifications was submitted to products from Germany, but also from France, Italy, United Kingdom and Poland. There were mainly motor vehicles (and the number of notifications increased last years) and also clothing, textiles and fashion items, childcare articles and children’s equipment, toys and cosmetics. The product user was mainly consumer. The risk level was primarily serious and the risk type was injury. The products were most often submitted by Germany and also Greece and the appropriate measures to products were taken mainly by economic operators.