2026: a turning point for product safety enforcement in Europe?
Why stronger enforcement is changing the way manufacturers should approach European market access.
EurHub attended the European Commission’s International Product Safety Week 2026 in Brussels. This year marked the twentieth edition of the event and was organised under the theme “Product Safety in Motion”, reflecting the impact of changing consumer markets, e-commerce, digitalisation and new technologies on product safety.
One message that stood out during the week was the idea of 2026 as a turning point: the regulatory framework has been modernised over recent years, and the focus is increasingly shifting from introducing new rules to actually enforcing them.
There are already visible signs of that change.
In May 2026, the European Commission imposed a €200 million fine on Temu under the Digital Services Act. The Commission found that Temu had not adequately identified, analysed and assessed systemic risks relating to illegal products offered through its platform and the resulting risks to EU consumers.
Earlier in the year, the Commission also opened formal proceedings against Shein under the DSA. Part of that investigation concerns the systems Shein uses to limit the sale of illegal products in the EU.
These are Digital Services Act cases rather than GPSR enforcement cases, so the legal frameworks should not be confused. But together with increased product-safety sweeps, digital market-surveillance tools and greater cooperation between authorities, they form part of a broader enforcement environment in which online sales of non-compliant products are receiving much more attention.
The European Commission has also indicated that market-surveillance rules themselves are being reviewed. Its planned European Product Act is intended to update the New Legislative Framework and the Market Surveillance Regulation, with the stated objective of strengthening the rules so that only compliant and safe products enter the Single Market.
For manufacturers outside Europe, this makes the quality of their EU compliance structure increasingly important.
An authorised representative or responsible person should therefore not be seen as a last-minute administrative requirement to be solved immediately before products go on sale. It forms part of a wider compliance chain involving documentation, labelling, online product information, traceability and cooperation with authorities.
At EurHub, our takeaway from Product Safety Week was clear: European market access is becoming more professionalised, and enforcement is catching up with the regulatory framework.
