The European Commission says major online Chinese producers of cheap imports into the European Union will be liable for the sale of unsafe and dangerous products on their platforms.

The Commission is cracking down on the flood of cheap ecommerce imports which they see as unfair competition to EU sellers.

In 2024, 91% of all e-commerce shipments valued up to EUR 150 entering the EU came from China and their volume more than doubled between 2023 and 2024 – from 1.9 billion to 4.17 billion items.

The EU executive also said it would coordinate a joint investigation by the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network of national consumer authorities into one of the major Chinese companies based on suspicions that the company infringes EU consumer protection rules.

There is also a call for the adoption of the Customs Union Reform Package, proposed in May 2023, which would remove the exemption from duty for low-value parcels worth less than €150 and the create an EU Customs Authority, a decentralised agency that would gather all the member states custom authorities with the Commission.

“The surging volume of products that are unsafe, counterfeit, or otherwise noncompliant leads to serious safety and health risks for consumers, has an unsustainable impact on the environment, and fuels unfair competition for legitimate businesses, with a significant impact on competitiveness in different sectors,” the Commission proposal says.

The measures by the EU executive echoed a similar push by the U.S. government which ended a trade provision last week used by retailers to ship low-value packages duty-free to the United States.

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