The European Union’s Safety Gate, formerly known as the RAPEX system, serves as a central information exchange platform for dangerous products. Through this platform, the market surveillance authorities of EU member states inform each other about products that pose risks.
Products classified as dangerous in one member state are often also withdrawn from the market in other countries. European authorities can stop products that violate legal requirements and are deemed dangerous at the border, remove them from commerce, or, in some cases, even recall them from end consumers.
We have analyzed data from the last four years and arrived at some very interesting results:
In 2024, a total of 4,152 warning notifications were issued via the Safety Gate. This represents 21.5% more notifications than in the previous year, which, with 3,418 notifications, was already 50% above the level of 2022.
On average, there were 80 notifications per week in 2024, compared to 66 notifications per week in 2023.
Figure 1: Notifications of Dangerous Products in the Safety Gate 2021 – 2024
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
Of the 4,251 non-compliant products, 1,256 were subject to a product recall. This not only means that almost every third affected product is no longer allowed to be sold, but also that manufacturers, importers, or distributors must recall the products from end consumers—an undertaking associated with significant effort and high costs.
In 2023, there were “only” 1,036 recalls, which is 18% fewer than in the previous year.
Looking at the affected product groups, most of the reported products in 2024 came from the cosmetics sector. With almost 1,500 reported products, nearly 125 different cosmetics were subject to sales bans or even product recalls each month.
More than 600 notifications concerned the toy category, while electrical products—including lighting and multimedia products—were classified as dangerous 585 times. The growth compared to the previous year was 37% for cosmetics, 32% for toys, and even over 40% for electrical products.
Figure 2: Dangerous Products by Product Groups in 2024
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
The number of criticized clothing items and baby products, jewelry, and motor vehicles decreased compared to the previous year, whereas chemical products saw an increase of 75%. As a result, the share of dangerous chemical products has risen to 5%. This product group includes various items such as paints, adhesives, or cleaning agents. However, electronic cigarettes and their ingredients were the most frequently cited, with over 100 products affected.
Once again in 2024, chemicals were at the forefront of the risks. With 2,266 notifications, chemical risks accounted for 55% of the non-compliant and banned products. In addition to the almost 1,500 cosmetics—whose main risks were of chemical origin (over 95% of the cosmetics contained BMHCA, a substance prohibited in cosmetic products)—baby products, clothing, jewelry, toys, and sports and leisure items were also affected.
836, or 20.1%, of the non-compliant products carried the risk of various injuries, cuts, or damage to vision or hearing. 348 products posed the risk of causing suffocation or strangulation, and 314 products could lead to electric shocks and/or fires.
Of the 249 products that posed an environmental hazard, 226 violated the RoHS directive. For this reason, nine out of ten products were subject to market withdrawals and sales bans. This is yet another indication that authorities are increasingly focusing on the compliance of defined limit values for electrical products and rigorously checking them.
Figure 3: Dangers from Critical Products in 2024
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
As in previous years, by far the most non-compliant products came from the People’s Republic of China. 1,661 products, or 40%, were imported from that country. Due to the very high number of reported cosmetics, the share of Chinese products among all non-compliant products dropped from almost 50% in 2022, although the absolute number continued to increase.
Italy also ranked second in terms of non-compliant products in 2024, as 600 of the non-compliant cosmetics originated from Italy—a product category that was intensively scrutinized last year, especially by the Italian and Hungarian market surveillance authorities.
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Also, 69% of the non-compliant products from France were cosmetics, while for Poland the figure was 52%. Products from China were primarily toys and electronic products (over 1,000 products), with cosmetics being hardly affected.
Figure 4: Countries of Origin for Dangerous Products in 2024
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
Figure 5: RAPEX Notifications by Individual Member States 2021 – 2024
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
As in the previous year, most notifications in 2023 came from Italy, where an extremely high number of cosmetics were examined and found non-compliant. While Italy had submitted only 51 notifications in 2022, there were a total of 1,087 in 2024.
Many notifications also came from Germany (477), Sweden (389), Hungary (367), the Czech Republic (328), and France (322). The Hungarian authorities once again focused on the analysis of cosmetics in 2024, with 47% of the reported products being cosmetics.
While the number of notifications in most European countries remained at a similar level as in the previous year, the Czech Republic submitted three times as many notifications as in the previous year. In addition to cosmetics (151 notifications), the Czech authorities primarily analyzed chemical products (70), toys (45), and electronic cigarettes (37), and largely withdrew them from the market.
At first glance, it seems obvious that populous countries such as Germany, France, or Poland report more dangerous products in absolute numbers than smaller countries like Latvia, Luxembourg, or Cyprus. But what does the picture look like when taking population size into account and converting the number of notifications per 1 million inhabitants? This perspective reveals some extremely interesting insights:
Figure 6: Notifications of Dangerous Products per 1 Million Inhabitants in 2023 and 2024 (Average Values Shown as Dashed Lines)
Source: Own representation, graphic based on:
https://ec.europa.eu/safety-gate-alerts/screen/search?resetSearch=true
On average, European member states reported approximately 8 dangerous products per 1 million inhabitants in 2023 (based on the population of each member state as of January 1, 2020, according to Eurostat—indicated in Figure 6 by the blue dashed line). This is nearly 1.4 products more than in the previous period, when the average value was 6.6 (red dashed line).
Germany, with a factor of 5.7, is slightly below this average. The leader in this regard is Cyprus, with 74.3 notifications per 1 million inhabitants. Other extremely active countries include Lithuania (53.3), Malta (44.7), Sweden (37.7), and Hungary (37.6).
In contrast, Greece (0.4) and Spain (0.5) are either not active or barely active. Below-average values are also seen in Portugal (2.7), the Netherlands (3.2), Belgium (3.5), and Romania (4.1). Due to its intensive activities in the cosmetics sector, Italy has positioned itself in the upper-middle range in 2024 with 18 notifications per 1 million inhabitants, whereas in 2022 it was still one of the countries with the fewest notifications.
This analysis clearly shows that many smaller countries, relative to their population size, exhibit remarkable activity in market surveillance. At the same time, it raises questions as to why inspections in some larger countries appear to be so limited.
Given the assumption that similarly unsafe products are offered in the markets of Spain, Greece, or Portugal as in other EU countries, it is difficult to understand why in these countries hardly any dangerous products are identified and reported in the Safety Gate.
The drastic increase in dangerous products reported via the Safety Gate to all member states impressively demonstrates that market surveillance authorities have significantly intensified their controls.
The targeted focus on specific product categories in individual countries also illustrates that cooperation between member states is becoming increasingly closer—a serious step for companies toward even more efficient and consistent measures.
The likelihood that non-compliant products will be discovered and subjected to sales bans or recall actions has noticeably increased compared to the previous year.
For companies, this means a significantly increased risk of incurring substantial financial losses. A study by Allianz shows that product recalls of electrical items or toys can quickly result in costs ranging from €650,000 to €1,000,000. Even import bans can cost between €50,000 and €100,000 for medium-sized shipments—and that is without accounting for additional costs due to contractual penalties or the nearly irreparable damage to a company’s image.
We recommend that our clients attach significantly higher importance to product compliance management, random testing, and, above all, complete and reliable documentation in order to avert damages of considerable magnitude.
The new product safety regulation has, since December 2024, required internal risk analyses and complete technical documentation even for product areas that were previously not explicitly regulated.
We are happy to assist you in establishing an appropriate risk management system and support you throughout the conformity assessment process. This includes, among other things, determining product-specific requirements, preparing the technical documentation, conducting the risk analysis, and designing complete and up-to-date EU declarations of conformity.
Schedule a free initial consultation appointment today:
https://produkt-compliance.de/services/compliance-beratung/kostenlose-erstberatung-produkt-compliance
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