Customs Union agreements on product safety, quality in development
MINSK. October 11. KAZINFORM Agreements are being prepared to regulate the safety of products and the responsibility for the product quality in the Customs Union, Mr Valery Gurevich, Director of the Belarusian State Standardization and Certification Institute, told a press conference on 10 October.
At present the Customs Union uses a fundamental agreement on principles and rules of technical regulations. The agreement lays down the key rules and procedures to adopt technical regulations and the competence of government agencies in this area. But it is totally insufficient, stressed Valery Gurevich. Therefore, it is necessary to adopt two more agreements on the overall safety of products and the responsibility of manufacturers. Such agreements correspond to the European model for technical regulations. A draft agreement on the overall safety of products in the Single Economic Space has been prepared and has been forwarded to the Eurasian Economic Commission. "The idea is to get a more precise understanding of the safety of products, the documents it is regulated by and what supervision is used, what information about unsafe products should be present," explained Valery Gurevich. The entire safety-related infrastructure of the Customs Union will rely on the document, he specified. The other agreement, the one about the responsibility of manufacturers will synchronize the responsibility of Customs Union member states for manufacturing safe products. At present every Customs Union state has its own national laws that differ in the degree of influence on the companies that commit violations, BelTA reports.
Valery Gurevich also cited strict requirements of the European Union. In the European Union severe fines are used - up to €70 million for violating the rules relating to the safety and quality of products. With the system in place, every company is interested in keeping as close to the effective legislation as possible. Manufacturers are strongly motivated not to commit violations in the manufacturing of products.
The rules should be amended a bit in the Customs Union, too, and a mandatory common mechanism should be created to enforce responsibility with similar quality supervision rules on the three countries market. Because different supervision mechanisms - some are tougher, some are softer - can be used for unfair competition, believes Valery Gurevich. Since unified standards are in place, the entire infrastructure that ensures technical regulation should be the same, too, he stressed. The two agreements will be aimed at achieving the goal.
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