EMARS - ENHANCING MARKET SURVEILLANCE THROUGH BEST PRACTICE
This is the first major EU-funded project that PROSAFE has undertaken. It is a three year project which started approximately at the beginning of 2006. EMARS (or sometimes referred to as EMARS-I) aims to achieve a basic level of expertise and practical experience throughout most of the market surveillance organisations within Member States of  the EEA (European Economic Area).

Some of the aims of this project have been to establish the following:

Handbook on Best Practices Techniques in Market Surveillance
Through this project, PROSAFE will publish the first book on best practices in market surveillance. This will help to ensure more coordinated and well-established best practice techniques in the area of market surveillance. Further information about this book can be found here.

Rapid Advice Forum (RAF)
This forum serves as a practical way for market surveillance officers to get a quick and informal response from fellow market surveillance officers from across the EEA. This has proved to be a valuable tool for market surveillance officers whereby various on-going queries related to various products and risks have been discussed. Further information can be found here.

Knowledge Base

PROSAFE has succeeded to gather a considerable amount of knowledge (in English) on market surveillance within the EMARS –Webex (which is an on-line extranet facility whereby various documents have been stored). This is readable available to the participating Member States and members of PROSAFE. Further information can be found here.

Risk Assessment
Considerable work and support has been given by the respective PROSAFE working group to ensure that the latest knowledge and information is available on risk assessment techniques. Further information can be found here.

There are other objectives related to EMARS such as the development of a training strategy for market surveillance officers as well as the development of a much wider strategy on market surveillance in general. For further information about EMARS, please visit this website.

This project involved a substantial number of players including:
- PROSAFE members
- European Product Safety Network
- ADCO-LVD
- ADCO-Toys
- ADCO-PPE
- ADCO-Machinery
- Various Consumer and Business Sectors
- Other Related Organisations such as Eurosafe

EMARS is being managed by PROSAFE with the generous support from the European Commission, in particular, DG-Health and Consumers. EFTA and other Member States have also contributed financially to the project. There are 15 Member States participating directly in this project, fourteen from the EU and one from EFTA. However, various other Member States have participated outside the financial scheme, thus ensuring a much wider participation across most of the EEA.

The Dutch Food and Consumer Safety Authority (VWA) is taking the lead in managing this project and is the contracting party with the Commission on behalf of PROSAFE.

A lasting solution for this support will be proposed as follow up of this project.
The spill-over effect of this project will not only be seen through more effective market surveillance operations as well as increased confidence from the respective key-players but also through a higher level of product safety within the Single Market.
Organisation of the project

HANDBOOK ON BEST PRACTICES TECHNIQUES IN MARKET SURVEILLANCE
This is a very important initiative undertaken by PROSAFE through the EMARS Project. It is the first book ever published within Europe related specifically to best practices in market surveillance. This book is of particular importance to those government organisations who are trying to further improve their existing infrastructure and experience in the subject matter. It may also serve of particular interest to consumers and businesses too in view of the interaction which exists with these key-players. It may also stimulate other market surveillance organisations across the world to pursue some ideas and experiences found within this book  to further improve their own market surveillance activities.

Ultimately, it is hoped that this book will help to ensure a more coordinated approach to market surveillance throughout the EEA which will hopefully result in having safer products sold within Europe and across the world.

Some of the headings of the chapters within this book are shown below to give you a taster of the information found within this book.

- Market Surveillance Activities - The organisation and infrastructure needed
- Project planning
- Reactive market surveillance
- Market Surveillance Projects – the implementation stage
- Market Surveillance Projects – results and follow-up
- Market Surveillance Projects – the review, reporting and analysis stage
- Risk Assessment
- Risk Communication
- The Main European/International stakeholders within market surveillance
- Cross-border information systems
- Cross-border market surveillance plans and the importance of joint projects
- Customs Cooperation in cross-border projects

Various annexes related to the results and best practices found within specific joint projects managed by PROSAFE have also been included, together with a list of frequently asked questions.

A copy of the latest version of this book in pdf version is available and can be downloaded from this link.

RAPID ADVICE FORUM
Market Surveillance Authorities find themselves often in a situation in which they have to decide if a certain product conforms to the general safety requirement of a certain directive (e.g. GPSD, LVD, Toys, PPE …) and/or if a product is covered by these directives. If no standards, national legislation, recommendations or safety codes exist for this product, or if these documents do not take into consideration all safety aspects of this product, this decision will need to take into consideration the state and art of technology and/or the reasonable consumer expectations concerning safety. In these cases it will be necessary to make a judgement call based on experience and the results of a risk analysis.
To assure a correct and non-biased result, it would be very useful if the individual market surveillance officers could get a rapid and informal first assessment and feed-back from fellow officers (from other Member States). This assessment and feedback given by individual market surveillance officers will be based on their personal experience and expertise. Their opinion will NOT necessarily reflect the opinion of their Member State and will in any case never be regarded as a binding opinion of a Member State. The officer receiving the assessment is in no way obliged to take this assessment and feedback in consideration.
A;Rapid Advice Forum has now been established in EMARS under the leadership of Jan Deconinck of Belgium.A procedure for introducing requests for advice has been agreed anda standard request form made available. Completed forms can be sent to info@emars.eu.

For more detailed information about RAF, follow this link.

KNOWLEDGE BASE
PROSAFE has succeeded to gather a considerable amount of knowledge (in English) on market surveillance within the EMARS –Webex. This is mainly a collection of various documents and related information from various market surveillance organizations related to market surveillance. Other documents which may of of special relevance to product safety and surveillance activities have also been included.

In order to access this information, one has to have access to the EMARS Webex which is a web-based extranet system whereby all the documents related to this knowledge base as well as other material related to the EMARS project can be found.

In order to check whether one is able to gain access, one has to initially write to the EMARS Secretariat on to info@emars.eu .

If you already have access to EMARS Webex, follow this link.

RISK ASSESSMENT

Background
During 2006 and 2007, the Commission has developed improved RAPEX Risk Assessment Guidelines with the assistence of Member State experts.

One of the planned deliverables of this project is a book entitled ‘Best Practice Techniques in Market Surveillance’. This book will include a specific chapter on risk assessment of consumer products. A team of experts from various EU Member States have participated and prepared this chapter.

Link with RAPEX Guidelines
As noted above since early 2006, a European working group (WG IRAG) has discussed a revision of the risk assessment method used in the context of RAPEX notifications, after which the RAPEX Guidelines will also be updated accordingly.

The EMARS team of experts on risk assessment have worked in close co-operation with the WG IRAG. The intention is to promote the new RAPEX Guidelines as the current best practice for risk assessment of consumer products. The Best Practice book will provide additional information about the risk assessment practice, practical solutions for problems, examples, and the like.

The chapter on Risk Assessment can be found by clicking on this link. For further information about Risk Assessment, kindly send an email to the EMARS Secretariat on: EMARS Secretariat Email.

Training

Joint Programmese

Strategic Policy