European consumer protection commissioner Michael McGrath has called for greater co-operation from China to ensure that products ordered through platforms like Temu and Shein are safe.
About 12 million small parcels ordered on e-commerce platforms enter the European Union every day, 90 per cent of them from China.
“The key issue for me as an EU Commissioner with responsibility for consumer protection is the need to ensure that our consumer protection laws are fully respected and also that the products coming into the EU are safe. The problem is, based on all of the evidence that we have, a significant proportion of the products emanating from China do not meet minimum EU safety standards,” Mr McGrath told The Irish Times.
He acknowledged that the Commission does not know what proportion of Chinese goods entering the EU are unsafe or do not meet European standards.
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But he said that just over half of the products listed as being potentially unsafe or not up to EU minimum standards came from China.
Mr McGrath was speaking in the southern port city of Guangzhou during a five-day visit to China where he met the minister responsible for market regulation as well as officials from customs and regulatory authorities. In Guangzhou on Wednesday he announced the extension of an EU-funded project aimed at helping Chinese suppliers to comply with European safety standards.
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“I think this is in Chinese interests as well because they guard their reputation very dearly and they want to be known as a country producing high quality and safe products. The products that are coming into the EU that are unsafe are also circulating within the Chinese market and are also of concern, I believe, to the Chinese authorities. There is a mutual interest here to address this issue,” he said.
Mr McGrath is the first European commissioner to visit China since a frosty EU-China summit in Beijing last July. While last week’s meeting between Xi Jinping and Donald Trump in South Korea signalled a thaw in US-China relations, the atmosphere between Brussels and Beijing remains tense.
The issue of small parcels is one of a number of trade disputes and European manufacturers have been hit by Chinese export controls on rare earths used to make everything from cars to laptops. But Mr McGrath said it is important for the EU to continue to engage with China.
“I think at this moment in global geopolitics, talking, listening, and engaging has never been more important. The EU and China have a very strong trading relationship. It is an unbalanced one with a trade surplus in goods last year of over €300 billion in favour of China,” he said.
“But we believe in diplomacy, we believe in engagement. That is why I’m here. I’m not burying my head in the sand in relation to the challenges of e-commerce. They have to be confronted. Europe remains open for business, open for trade, open for e-commerce, but on the basis of full respect of our rules on consumer protection and product safety.”
