GPSR horror (argh!)

[sundancer 42906xp 1]

Well, this comes as a surprise. At least to me:

Well, if you are linked to the production side of the hobby you may have heard of the imminent (From December) introduction of the EU’s GPSR product safety regulations. These have been due to come in for quite some time, but as many of us in the hobby small business world are not international trade law experts many of us have been taken by surprise by just what the consequences of these changes will mean.

I will not attempt to lay out my fractured understanding here, but suffice to say these are currently extremely significant, and the practical upshot is that many of us are ceasing to ship orders to the EU and indeed Northern Ireland before the end of November.

I will be doing the same, and so this means I will be sending out all EU pledges right away in order to make sure they get to you before the start of the GPSR regulations.

I wish I could announce the beginning of fulfillment in a more cheerful way, but here we are! I have every intention of getting Fogou stuff to the EU again as soon as possible, but will simply be stepping away from the whole market until a practical solution is found.

I really don’t know what GPSR is about so I had to search online for it.

From what I understand the General Product Safety Regulation now demands from every manufacturer to make extensive research to see whether a product is potentially harmful or not.

CHAPTER III

OBLIGATIONS OF ECONOMIC OPERATORS
SECTION 1

Article 9

Obligations of manufacturers

1. When placing their products on the market, manufacturers shall ensure that those products have been designed and manufactured in accordance with the general safety requirement laid down in Article 5.

2. Before placing their products on the market, manufacturers shall carry out an internal risk analysis and draw up technical documentation containing at least a general description of the product and its essential characteristics relevant for assessing its safety.

No sure how that applies to Fogou but neither seems like they do. Has any other hobby company reacted to this? Will this be the next “kick in the nut” for the hobby community after Brexit? Where is a lawyer when you need one.

[grantinvanman 2159xp 0]

Well, that sounds like a massive bureaucratic nightmare of epic proportions.

BREXIT just keeps looking worse, sadly. And the EU looks more and more truly distinct from the UK.

A strange time indeed.

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