Federal Office for Agriculture and Food

Product Contact Point

To improve the free movement of goods within the European Union, Product Contact Points have been set up in the Member States. The purpose of these Product Contact Points is to facilitate access to the national market for economic operators of other Member States.

Their principal task is to provide information on products for which so far no uniform regulations have been introduced across the EU. This includes particularly information on current national product legislation. These are laws, regulations or administrative provisions that provide produkt requirements, e.g. in terms of composition, shape, size, marking, packaging, labelling.

Individual statements are made by the Product Contact Point upon inquiry (more information).

In Germany the tasks of the Product Contact Points are fulfilled by the Federal Agency for Agriculture and Food (BLE) for the agricultural and fisheries sectors and for consumer products, and by the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing (BAM) for all remaining products.

Background

The Product Contact Points are set up on the basis of Regulation (EC) No 764/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 9 July 2008 laying down procedures aiming to facilitate the free movement of goods within the internal market.

This regulation was repealed by the new Regulation (EU) 2019/515 (https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/DE/ALL/?uri=CELEX:32019R0515) on the mutual recognition of goods lawfully marketed in another Member State (‘the Regulation’) and started to apply on 19 April 2020.

The aim of this Regulation is to strenghten the internal market principle of mutual recognition. It is applied to products of which the technical regulations are not unified by EU guidelines (non-harmonised sector). This principle says that a Member State is not allowed to prohibit the marketing of products that have been lawfully manufactured and/or put on the market in another Member State even if these products don’t comply with all regulations in the Member State of destination. Exceptions to this principle are only admissible if this is justified, or for overriding reasons of public interest. In some cases, EU authorities may require national regulation on certain products. The Product Contact Point provides information on which rules apply to a specific product in Germany.

Voluntary declaration of mutual recognition

The Regulation enables the producer, importer or distributor to draw up a voluntary declaration (or "self-declaration") of the lawful marketing of the goods for the purposes of mutual recognition ("mutual recognition declaration").
The "mutual recognition declaration" (https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/40922) is available in all official EU languages and can be downloaded.
To assist companies and national competent authorities the Commission has issued a Guidance document for Mutual Recognition Regulation (EU) 2019/515 (https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/45593). This document explains various aspects of the regulation.
In addition, the training material (https://ec.europa.eu/docsroom/documents/45185) is available in all official EU languages.