what are the powers of the European Commission vis-à-vis the Chinese platform?

Several MEPs are calling for the suspension of the site about which grievances are piling up.

Shein in the sights of France, but also of the European Union. The French government asks the European Commission to investigate the Chinese platform, Thursday November 6. This has been at the center of controversy for several days, in particular because of the presence of sex dolls and weapons on its site. Shein has already been the subject of numerous warnings at European level.

The EU’s grievances are numerous: sales pressure, announcements of false purchase deadlines, false discounts, misleading labels and above all safety problems linked to the products sold. Following investigations carried out in Belgium, France, Ireland and the Netherlands, the European Commission considered, last April, that Shein violated EU law.

“Of course you have to hit hard.”

François Kalfon, French MEP

at franceinfo

The Commission, chaired by Ursula von der Leyen, is threatening Shein with fines if it does not quickly comply with European law. But according to the French social-democrat MEP, François Kalfon, an expert on the European internal market, this is insufficient. “I am, with colleagues from all sides of the European Parliament, writing a large open letter to Ursula von der Leyen demanding the suspension of this platformspecifies the elected official. Checks were carried out very recently on chargers for electronic devices, there were more than 70% of them non-compliant. And when we move on to children’s toys on safety issues, we arrive at non-compliance rates which are between 80 and 100%. So the question is to suspend as a precautionary measure to avoid endangering European consumers.”

Suspension is indeed provided for in the European regulation on digital services, but as a last resort.“When all other means have been exhausted and the offense has not been corrected”stipulates its article 51. It gives the possibility of a restriction “temporary”four weeks or more, access to the incriminated platform, specifies the regulation.

The tools exist, underlines Belgian centrist MEP Yvan Verougstraete, who invites us to use them. “No national authority can resolve this alone, he emphasizes. If everyone acts independently, the company will circumvent the rules by going through the most lax country. We have an internal market, it must be protected as such. If Europe wants to remain an area where consumers are protected and where businesses that respect the rules are not penalized, then the response must be coordinated and European.”

Several MEPs, including Yvan Verougstraete, are calling for Shein managers to be summoned before the European Parliament to ask them, officially and publicly, for explanations on the numerous breaches noted in European legislation.