GREECE Law and Practice Contributed by: Dimitris Emvalomenos, Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners
within the framework of existing international legislation, which is, within the EU, the EU Rapid Alert System for dangerous non-food products (see Safety Gate: the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products and 1.4 Obliga- tions to Notify Regulatory Authorities ). The Safety Gate has three components: • GPSR (especially Articles 25, 26 and 34), which replaced GPSD on 13 December 2024; • the EU harmonisation legislation ; and • the EU technical standards. To support the GPSR, EU secondary legislation has been adopted and entered into application at the same time as the GPSR covering a variety of topics (see Safety Gate: the EU rapid alert system for dangerous non-food products), Also see the European Commission’s annu - al report on Safety Gate for 2024 which was released on 16 April 2025. The Safety Gate replaced the EU Rapid Informa - tion System – RAPEX. Following the enactment of GPSR, the European Commission’s guidelines for the management of RAPEX set by its Imple - menting Decision (EU) 2019/417, as amended by the European Commission’s Implementing Deci - sion (EU) 2023/975 of 15 May 2023, ceased to be in force (from 26 March 2025). 1.3 Obligations to Commence Corrective Action The general framework is that the manufacturer or distributor of a defective product must take any appropriate measures to eliminate possible hazards affecting the product’s use as soon as a defect comes to their attention. These measures may vary, and can include warning notifications, instructions to consumers, invitations for servic -
ing or updating the product at issue so that it becomes safe, or recall notifications (see also 1.4 Obligations to Notify Regulatory Authori- ties ). A product recall is an action taken where no oth - er measure would eliminate the danger, and may be initiated voluntarily by the manufacturer or the distributor or mandatorily following an order by the competent authority. The European Commission provides a guide entitled “Recall process from A-Z: Guidance for economic operators and market surveillance authorities” dated 22 July 2021 which con - tains useful information on the legal framework around and process to be followed by economic operators and market surveillance authorities in determining when corrective action – specifically a recall – is required, and how best to handle it. 1.4 Obligations to Notify Regulatory Authorities If manufacturers or distributors become aware that any of their products present a risk to con - sumers, they must immediately notify the Gen- eral Secretariat and any other competent regula - tory authority, depending on the type of product involved. The criteria determining when a matter requires notification derive from the rule that the safety profile of a product dictates any notifica - tion needed. Article 7, paragraph 3 of Law 2251 (see 1.1 Product Safety Legal Framework ) lists the cri - teria to be monitored from the point of view of risks to consumers’ safety and health protection, as follows: • the characteristics of the product, including its composition, packaging, instructions for
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