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Information

PROSAFE (the Product Safety Enforcement Forum of Europe) has been established by market surveillance officers from various countries throughout Europe. The first meeting of the group was held in 1990. Since then, most EU and EFTA countries have been represented at meetings together with various other accession, candidate and potential candidate countries from different parts of Europe. In order to ensure a high level of transparency, the EU Commission and EFTA Secretariat have standing invitations to meetings and workshops.

Over the last years, interest in PROSAFE has also expanded overseas and PROSAFE has become an active member of the ICPSC (International Consumer Product Safety Caucus).

As from 2006, PROSAFE has taken the initiative to coordinate a number of Joint Actions between various market surveillance organisations within the EEA (European Economic Area), which are all financially supported by the EU Commission. In order to effectively handle this additional responsibility and to adequately administer all Joint Actions, PROSAFE utilises consultancy services. Furthermore, a Secretariat has been established, which, thanks to the generosity of the EFTA Secretariat, is located at the EFTA Building in Brussels.

MISSION STATEMENT

To facilitate the cooperation between market surveillance officers to improve product and service safety.

CORPORATE OBJECTIVE 

The corporate objective of PROSAFE is to promote informal discussions and cross border cooperation between market surveillance officers across Europe in order to share valuable information and learn from each others' experience with the primary intention of enhancing market surveillance activities related to product and service safety within the European Economic Area (EEA).

PROSAFE aims to:

• continue to provide a practical forum for exchanging information through various means, including PROSAFE meetings, discussions and networking between all respective members whilst employing a maximum of discretion.
• ensure an effective level of formal networking with various international bodies as well as other organisations within and outside Europe.
• strive to act as an initial platform for certain European projects, building up the necessary initial infrastructure and informal feedback on certain issues that require a focus approach.
• take steps to establish a system of voluntary mutual peer review of its members with the goal of achieving a higher level of product safety within the EEA.

PROSAFE MEETINGS

PROSAFE General Assembly meetings (more commonly known as PROSAFE Meetings) are usually held twice every year in one of the EEA countries. These meetings serve to discuss various issues of European market surveillance, in particular, in relation to specific product safety problems found during the last six months by the participating market surveillance organisations.

JOINT ACTION PROJECTS

Since 2005, PROSAFE has embarked on various projects. Of particular importance was the EU funded EMARS-I (Enhancing Market Surveillance through Best Practice) Joint Action project, which is now being followed up by EMARS II. Various other EU funded (product specific) projects are also being led and coordinated by PROSAFE. More information about all the projects can be found by entering into the PROJECTS Menu on the left hand side of the main page.

THE CHARTER

The PROSAFE Charter contains the guiding principles for this organisation and its members. At the PROSAFE General Assembly Meeting in Ocotober 2009 the draft Charter has been agreed upon by all members. After the translation process is finalised, the offical Charter will be made availble on this website.