Commission Decision of 5 February 2014 on the safety requirements to be met by European standards for consumer laser products pursuant to Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on general product safety (Text with EEA relevance) (2014/59/EU)

Commission Decision

of 5 February 2014

on the safety requirements to be met by European standards for consumer laser products pursuant to Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on general product safety

(Text with EEA relevance)

(2014/59/EU)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 3 December 2001 on general product safety(1), and in particular Article 4(1)(a) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Products covered by Directive 2001/95/EC which conform to national standards transposing European standards drawn up under that Directive benefit from a presumption of safety as far as the risks covered by the standards are concerned.

(2) European standards are to be drawn up on the basis of safety requirements intended to ensure that products which conform to the standards satisfy the general safety requirement set out in Article 3 of Directive 2001/95/EC.

(3) Laser products, in particular hand-held, battery-powered laser pointers, that pose a risk of damage to sight and to the skin have become widely available to consumers.

(4) The current European standard for laser products (EN 60825-1:2007 ‘Safety of laser products – Part 1: Equipment classification and requirements’) provides that the hazard of laser products has to be assessed and that laser products have to carry appropriate warning labels and be supplied with user instructions that contain all relevant safety information. However, compliance with that standard does not ensure that a laser product is safe to be used by consumers.

(5) Currently there is a widespread consensus that laser products corresponding to classes 1, 1M, 2 and 2M of the classification put in place by the standard referred to in recital 4 can be considered safe when used by consumers (provided that exposure to laser radiation does not take place with optical viewing instruments in case of products corresponding to classes 1M and 2M). This is not the case however for laser products of other laser classes.

(6) European standards should be drawn up in such a way as not to hamper technical innovation. For this reason, any standard for consumer laser products should not ban completely any products as far as the products can be used safely, bearing in mind that any damage to the eyes or unintended damage to the skin, whether reversible or irreversible, is incompatible with a high level of consumer health and safety protection.

(7) It is therefore appropriate to determine the safety requirements for consumer laser products in order to be able to submit a request to the European standardisation bodies to develop a new European standard or amend the current European standard.

(8) The measures provided for in this Decision are in accordance with the opinion of the Committee on General Product Safety,

HAS ADOPTED THIS DECISION:

(1)

OJ L 11, 15.1.2002, p. 4.