EU to tighten checks on goods sold by sites such as Shein and Temu | Retail industry

Parcels sent from China by online retailers such as Shein and Temu will face strict new customs controls as part of a crackdown by the European Commission on “dangerous products” flooding the EU market.

Brussels officials also urged EU lawmakers to phase out the exemption on customs duties that is allowed for parcels under €150 (£125), which enables foreign suppliers to sell cheap goods in the bloc without paying the tax.

The commission said many of the billions of low-value products that enter the EU each year were not compliant with its laws, and European companies that respected the rules were losing out to competitors selling unsafe or counterfeit products.

“We have seen a surge in low-value products sold by non-EU traders sold by online marketplaces,” said the European Commission vice-president Henna Virkkunen. “Many of those products, they have been found to be unsafe, counterfeited or even dangerous, so they are not often meeting our standards.”

Last year, 4.6bn low-value parcels entered the EU, equivalent to 12m a day, three times more than in 2022. More than 91% of parcels valued under €150 came from China, where Temu and Shein make and dispatch most of their goods.

In a policy paper published on Wednesday, the commission said it would work with national customs authorities in the EU’s 27 member states to focus on unsafe products sold online, including stepping up market surveillance and testing.

The increase in cheap products bought online is increasing pressure on customs authorities, the commission said. It called on EU lawmakers – member states and MEPs – to remove the duty exemption on imports priced below €150, in line with proposals from May 2023.

“In response to the surge of low value e-commerce imports, it is critical to finalise our customs union reform,” said the European commissioner for trade, Maroš Šefčovič. He also suggested European lawmakers impose a handling fee on retailers to cover the soaring costs of supervising compliance with EU rules.

The EU executive is concerned about the environmental damage caused by the flood of cheap imports, from the pollution involved in their production and transport to the “serious challenges” posed to European recycling authorities, left to deal with low-quality, toxic or hard-to-recycle products.

It urged lawmakers to speed up work on a draft law that would mean manufacturers of textiles and footwear would pay fees to fund rubbish collection and treatment.

Temu and Shein did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The clampdown comes after Donald Trump’s 10% tariffs on Chinese goods closed a legal loophole that allowed China’s fast-fashion companies to ship goods under $800 (£638) into the US duty-free.

Provoking fury from Beijing, the US postal service announced late on Tuesday that it was suspending parcels from China and Hong Kong, giving no reason for the decision. On Wednesday it reversed that decision and restored incoming deliveries.

Last October, the commission started legal action against the Chinese online marketplace Temu over concerns that it was failing to stop the sale of illegal products. The platform, which tells users to “shop like a billionaire” and sells everything from clothes to cooking accessories at low prices, has experienced rocketing growth since launching in Europe in 2023.

The pan-European consumer group BEUC has raised the alarm about dangerous products sold by Temu: its members found children’s toys that posed a choking hazard, electric heaters that risked causing fires and electric shocks, wrongly labelled sunscreens and cosmetics, and crash helmets that offered inadequate protection. Temu has previously responded to BEUC’s complaint, saying it took it “very seriously” and would “study it thoroughly”.

Agustín Reyna, the director general of BEUC, said: “If the EU is serious about protecting consumers and hitting the road to decarbonisation, it must ensure everybody plays by the same rules.”