The EU’s new General Product Safety Regulations (GPSR) will take effect on 13 December 2024, introducing significant changes that will impact your EU sales. To help you quickly understand these changes, Kixto has prepared this guide. Drawing on the original EU directive and industry bodies, we’ve distilled the key points you need to know.

In our view, the EU has done too little to raise public awareness of this far-reaching legislation. We regret that many businesses, ours included, are only now becoming aware of it.

We believe the GPSR are a manageable challenge, not an insurmountable one. There is currently a lack of clarity, even from official sources, but past experience suggests any significant issues will be ironed out in the next 6 months.

We have lifelong experience of digesting large RPG rulebooks, but that’s the limit of our legal training. This article aims to clarify the GPSR but we’re not real lawyers and this is not legal advice. For advice specific to your products, please consult a legal professional or a Notified Body.

Scope

The GPSR are a catch-all safety law for products supplied to EU consumers, including books and e-books, including by distance selling from outside the EU. The law applies universally and is unrelated to Brexit.

Transitional provision

GPSR comes into effect on 13 December 2024 but has a clear transitional provision, that the supply of products which were first made available to the EU market before 13 December shall not be impeded.  In short, the GPSR does not limit the supply of existing products already available to the EU.

The GPSR clearly do apply to products you will first make available to the EU on or after 13 December. The act of enabling delivery to an EU country satisfies the conditions of “making available”.

The transitional provision is critical to limiting the scope, so please satisfy yourself that these clauses in the GPSR text are unambiguous:

Article 51

Transitional provision

Member States shall not impede the making available on the market of products covered by Directive 2001/95/EC which are in conformity with that Directive and which were placed on the market before 13 December 2024.

and

Definitions

(7) placing on the market’ means the first making available of a product on the Union market;

Merging Article 51 and the definition of placing on the market gives our understanding, and we are seeking official confirmation that this is the case:

Transitional provision

Member States shall not impede the making available on the market of products covered by Directive 2001/95/EC which are in conformity with that Directive and which were first made available on the market before 13 December 2024.

*Directive 2001/95/EC was the prior general product safety directive from 2001, repealed by this new one. For this article we are assuming existing products do comply with prior law.

Books?

We believe that books clearly come under GPSR, but do not require the inclusion of saftey information.

Practical reality of enforcement

To monitor distance selling, authorities will pick a sample of packages and check them – first at documents level, then perhaps physically checking. In theory, each country should interpret and enforce uniformly across the EU. However, prior experience tells us there will be differences.

We believe that the best approach is to make it really easy for any person conducting a check to see that the package does comply with GPSR. Kixto now offers the option to have attached to the outside of each EU parcel a label, in the destination language, that the contents comply with GPSR, and internally a declaration that these items were first available prior to 13 December 2024.

Your obligations for new products (released after 13 December)

You, the publisher, are responsible for ensuring and documenting that products you place on the EU market comply with applicable legislation. You have this responsibility because your trade name is on the product. You may have your products physically manufactured or designed by another business, but you remain the manufacturer.

GPSR apply to all products on the EU market, including those covered by specific “CE-mark” directives.

Historically, Directive 2001/95/EC required all products placed on the EU market to be safe. However, until now, only certain classes of products, such as games for under 14s, required specific documentation to prove they conform applicable standards. GPSR changes this.

Authorised representative

All products you first place on the EU market on or after 13 December 2024 must have an EU Authorised Representative (AR) and their contact details must be given with the product.

The AR must have a written mandate to act for you. Their tasks are normally to provide an EU point of contact, to verify and keep copies of your GPSR documentation for possible inspection, to deal with reports of dangerous incidents concerning a product.

Kixto will very soon be able to provide Authorised Representative services to our clients at minimal cost.

Technical documentation

For each new product you place on the EU market, you must draw up a technical document, which should contain the necessary information to prove it is safe and correctly labelled. Safety should be primarily achieved through product design. Remaining risks, if any, should be mitigated by safeguards, such as warnings and instructions.

For games for 14s and over, the EU Toy Safety Directive would be a reasonable starting point for the requirements of a safe game (broadly its physical, mechanical and chemical characteristics) and documentary requirements.

The GPSR also require manufacturers to consider mental health, so trigger warnings may appropriate for some content.

Specific advice is beyond our knowledge. If you are unsure, we suggest you consult with one of the “Notified Bodies” – organisations who are deemed able to give definitive opinion – listed here:
https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/single-market-compliance-space/notified-bodies

Suggested GPSR process for books (not definitive)

Engage an Authorised Representive for your “books” group of product. It should be possible to cover large numbers of book titles for a single fee, concrete information to follow.

Conduct a risk analysis and draw up technical documentation containing at least a general description of the book and its essential characteristics relevant for assessing its safety.

Article 9.7 of the directive says there is no requirement for a product to include instructions and safety information if the product can be used safely without instructions. We agree with the Federation of European Publishers’ statement that books (except for children) are inherently safe. That said, some subjects may require greater caution.

If I was publishing a book, my technical documentation for each title would comprise:

• The book’s title
• Its ISBN
• Its physical properties
• The printer’s details
• The materials used in production (paper, ink, varnish, glue, etc) and, for each, the Material Safety Data Sheet from the materials manufacturer to identify any risks from materials
• Mental health risks and trigger warnings arising from the subject matter.
• Labelling requirements – see Imprint Page, below.

On an Imprint Page, include

• Your name and address
• Print run / impression number (so a book can be matched to a manufacturing batch)
• Your printer’s location details, e.g. “Printed in Lithuania”
• Your EU authorised representative’s name, address and contact details
• Declaration of Conformity – stating your product complies with GPSR regulations

Your printer may be able to include the imprint information as a patch in reprints, without need to reset the whole print. Alternatively, as a service Kixto can apply an overlabel of your design to the outide or inside of each book.

Suggested GPSR process for games (not definitive)

Create a technical file that details:

• The game’s title
• Its barcode
• A general description
• Its physical properties
• The materials used in production and, for each, the Material Safety Data Sheet from the materials manufacturer to identify any risks from materials
• An assement of foreseeable risks, including mechanical, physical, chemical and allergen risks and how they have been mitigated to make the product safe
• Assessment of specific “CE-mark” standards that may apply, such as the Toy Safety Directive for games intended to be played by children under the age of 14.

Label the product with

• Your name and address
• Manufacturing batch number (so an item can be matched to how manufactured)
• Your manufacturing location, e.g. “Made in China”
• Your EU authorised representative’s name, address and contact details
• Declaration of Conformity – stating your product complies with GPSR regulations
• If specific standards apply, a CE-mark. (GPSR by itself does not have a CE-mark)

Include with the product:

• Any relevant safety warnings in all EU languages. This can be done using DeepL, which was recommented to us in a seminar run by the Department for Business and Trade.

Document history:

10 December 2024

Removed that CE-marked products on EU market before 13-Dec did not require an Authorised Representative.