GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Dimitris Emvalomenos, Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners
1. Product Safety 1.1 Product Safety Legal Framework The main laws and regulations of the legal regime around product safety in Greece are as follows. • Until 13 December 2024, Ministerial Decision Z3/2810 of 14 December 2004, which imple - mented EU Directive 2001/95/EC on General Product Safety (GPSD) was in force. As of the above date, GPSD was repealed by the Gen - eral Product Safety Regulation (EU) 2023/98 “on general product safety” (GPSR) and the above Ministerial Decision ceased to exist. • Law 2251/1994 on the Protection of Consum - ers and especially Articles 6, 7 and 7a (Law 2251; as amended repeatedly and in force currently following Law 5111/2024), which, inter alia, implemented EU Directive 85/374/ EEC on the approximation of the laws, regula - tions and administrative provisions of the member states concerning liability for defec - tive products (as amended by EU Directive 99/34/EC; the PLD). Law 2251 will be further revised once Directive (EU) 2024/2853 (the new PLD), which replaced the PLD, is trans - posed by Greece (latest by 9 December 2026; see 3.2 Future Policy in Product Liability and Product Safety ). The above legal framework is supplemented by and interacts with: • provisions of the Greek legislation on various specific product categories covering safety issues, basically of EU origin; and • Regulation (EU) 2019/102 “on market surveil- lance and compliance of products” of 20 June 2019, in force as of 16 July 2021 (excluding provisions on the new Union Product Compli - ance Network, in force as of 1 January 2021), as applies (current consolidated version of 23
May 2024) as well as the whole EU product safety regime, including secondary legislation (see 1.2 Regulatory Authorities for Product Safety ). 1.2 Regulatory Authorities for Product Safety The General Secretariat of Commerce via the General Directorate of Market and Consumer Protection and the Directorate of Consumer Protection (collectively hereinbelow the “Gen- eral Secretariat” ) of the Ministry of Development ( “the Ministry” ) is the central regulatory author - ity on producer compliance with product safety rules. Various other competent authorities exist for sectoral products, such as: • the General Secretariat of Industry of the Min - istry for industrial products, such as, among others, plastics and toys; • the National Organization for Medicines (EOF) for medicines, cosmetics and chemicals; and • the Hellenic Food Authority (EFET), for food products. The regulators have broad authorities and pow - ers for exercising their duties, and may request that the manufacturer, distributor or any supplier of an unsafe product implement specific preven - tive or corrective actions, defining the timeframe within which these actions should be accom - plished. If the obliged party fails to satisfy these requests, the regulators and/or another compe - tent authority may impose sanctions. In exercising their duties, product safety regula - tors may co-operate: (i) with other non-product safety regulators in the general frame of co-oper - ation between Greek public administrative bod - ies; and (ii) with similar international regulators
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