When presenting an annual report in Brussels, EU Commissioner Michael McGrath revealed that the EU has received more than 4,137 alerts for dangerous products over the past year – the highest number since its reporting system was implemented in 2003.
A key driver behind this surge appeared to be the growing volume of goods imported from China, with 40% of the alerts being on goods that originated there.
Cosmetics were the most flagged items – accounting for 36 per cent of all alerts, followed by toys (15%), electrical appliances (10%), motor vehicles (9%) and chemical products (6%).
An incredible 97% of the flagged cosmetics were found to contain BMHCA – a synthetic fragrance linked to reproductive harm and skin irritation that is banned from use in the EU.
Many low-cost items fail to meet EU safety standards
On 16 April, McGrath presented the results of the EU’s annual Safety Gate report for 2024 in Brussels, where he highlighted this rapid rise in reported violations of EU product safety rules.
The annual overview detailed how the EU identifies and removes dangerous (non-food) products from the market, to ensure that unsafe products don’t get into consumers’ homes, using its Safety Gate platform.
“Online sales have grown dramatically in recent years,” McGrath explained.
“A significant portion of these products blatantly fail to meet our stringent safety standards and regulations, posing serious risks to consumer safety and also creating unfair competition for all of those companies who do abide by the EU rules.”
McGrath also said that over the past year, Safety Gate has “enhanced its impact by leveraging new technologies, such as the “web crawler” e-surveillance tool, scanning websites to identify unsafe products that are still being sold online.”
“The surge in online sales has raised concerns about product safety, with many low-cost items failing to meet EU safety standards, posing risks to consumers and creating unfair competition for European businesses navigating our Single Market,” he continued.
In a reaction to the report, the China Chamber of Commerce to the EU told UK newspaper the Financial Times the media should “avoid politicising trade and product safety issues”.
It continued: “Ensuring the safety of goods in the EU market is a shared responsibility and we remain committed to working collaboratively with European partners to uphold high standards across global supply chains.”
Potential for more Chinese-made goods entering the EU
Experts have previously raised the issue of cheap and often dangerous cosmetics entering more tightly regulated markets via ecommerce sites.
The EU also may have concerns that more of these kinds of imports will reach the shores of European countries after US President Donald Trump imposed high import tariffs on Chinese-made goods entering the US market.
The e-commerce sites Temu and Shein, based in China and Singapore respectively, said they planned to raise prices for American customers from 25 April, in response to US President Donald Trump’s high tariffs on goods shipped into the US from China.
The companies have both stated that their operating expenses have risen “due to recent changes in global trade rules and tariffs” and that they will be making “price adjustments”.
Temu and Shein already under DSA investigation
McGrath explained that the General Product Safety Regulation (GPSR), which came into place in December 2024, also seeks to enforce stricter rules for those businesses targeting European consumers.
“It introduces tools like the Safety Business Gateway for businesses to report safety issues and the Consumer Safety Gateway for consumers to report problems directly. The GPSR also supports actions like mystery shopping and product sweeps to improve product safety across online marketplaces,” he explained.
In fact, EU has already launched proceedings against Temu in October 2024 under the Digital Services Act and also requested more information from Shein in February 2025.
For now, the Brussels authorities played only a co-ordinating role in the enforcement of consumer protection laws. But, in light of the rising number of alerts, the European Commission said it was considering changing this stance.
“For certain violations that are systemic and inherently cross-border, the Commission could be granted centralised investigative and enforcement powers,” said McGrath.
