Magazine: Question emerge concerning the cosmetics regulation

The European Union’s cosmetics regulation (1223/2009/EC) entered into force in 2013. Its goal is to harmonise community rules in order to create a standardised internal market for cosmetics products and to ensure the high-level protection of consumers in the European Union.

The regulation stipulates that cosmetics product distributors or importers in the EU must register all of their products at the Cosmetic Products Notification Portal (CPNP), with their composition, usage instructions and date of expiry. Zoltán Kiss, the commercial director of Creative World Kft. told our magazine that they had noticed contradictions in the rules of adapting to labelling requirements and this makes the life of distributors difficult. According to the National Public Health and Medical Officer Service (ÁNTSZ), the regulation states: if a company distributes a product that is already being sold in another EU country and decides to translate any part of the product label, the distributing company is obliged to publish certain pieces of related information via the CPNP website. Mr Kiss says distributors don’t have the right and the capacity to do this. He thinks it would be of great help if the authorities were entitled to learn about distributors’ obligations and responsibilities in the CPNP system. ÁNTSZ pointed out that the CPNP system is operated by the European Commission and national authorities don’t have access to the interface used by cosmetics distributors.