As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, according to the bill that has just been put up for public consultation, Croatian state inspectors will be able to purchase samples, including under secret identities, when checking the technical requirements and assessing the conformity of industrial products out on the market, and the costs will be borne by the responsible companies.
This is part of the process of harmonising Croatian legislation with the new European regulations, which came into force this summer and which complements and strengthens product supervision on the European Union’s single market.
As stated in the explanation of the proposal of the Croatian Law on Technical Requirements for Products and Conformity Assessment, the bill is set to regulate the manner of prescribing technical requirements for products, the obligations of economic operators, the prescribing of the requirements which need to be met by conformity assessment bodies, product contact points, single liaison office and cross-border mutual assistance, and inspection and misdemeanor provisions.
Its adoption is proposed by urgent procedure because EU Regulation 2019/1020 has been in full force since the 16th of July, and Croatia has an obligation to ensure the proper conditions for its implementation as soon as possible.
Of course, the inspection of products upon import for their placement on the EU market is performed by the Customs Administration of the Ministry of Finance, and the powers of the Croatian state inspectors themselves and the administrative measures related to them are prescribed in detail.
This European Union regulation provides for the granting of these powers to market surveillance authorities, and this is especially applicable, as has been stated, in cases where products are sold at a distance, ie via the Internet. The EU regulation itself enumerates a number of powers for market surveillance authorities, including the power to purchase product samples under a secret identity “in order to inspect those samples and reverse engineer them to establish non-conformities and gather evidence”.
The misdemeanor provisions state that a fine of 50,000 kuna to 1 million kuna will be imposed in the case of violations carried out by manufacturers and authorised representatives if they place a product out onto the market that isn’t designed and manufactured in accordance with the regulations, if they fail to test samples, if they don’t provide the competent inspector with all data and documents, if they don’t affix the prescribed CE marking or if they’re marked with markings that are similar to the CE marking and may mislead consumers, as well as for a number of other infringements.
For them, the responsible person from the company will be fined from 20 to 50 thousand kuna. The importer will be fined from 25 to 500 thousand kuna, and the responsible person from 15 to 50 thousand kuna, writes Jutarnji list.
Penalties are also provided for distributors, and “order providers” are also listed. These are all those who offer warehousing, packaging, addressing and shipping services within the trade, excluding postal services.
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