Proliferation of non-compliant products by KPN (Koninklijke)
Nigel Coleman made this Informationsfreiheit request to Exekutivagentur für Verbraucher, Gesundheit und Lebensmittel
This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Executive Agency for Health and Consumers (EAHC),
Under the right of access to documents in the EU treaties, as developed in Regulation 1049/2001, I am requesting documents which contain the following information:
It has been brought to my attention that the Dutch telecoms provider KPN (Koninklijke) has begun shipping in-house powerline networking products (PLT, Powerline Technology) which is in blatant breach of the European EMC Directive and of EN55022. It has also become very apparent that EU Regulators are failing to adhere to their statutory duty and are no longer an appropriate route to make a complaint.
KPN is shipping PLT adapters which have specifically had the protection for amateur radio bands removed - these protections are mandated in 2004/108/EC which specifically requires that amateur radio and broadcast radio is protected. In addition, the bulk of the HF spectrum is protected from PLT by ITU-R SM.1897-2 (August 2013). There is already widespread PLT interference across Europe in the broadcast portions of the shortwave spectrum.
Please provide documentation in which the European EMC regime has given leave to KPN to ship products which contravene 2004/108/EC, or any other communications which confirm that the EMC Directive is no longer applicable to products in Europe. It should be noted that Norway has recently taken action to remove similar PLT products from the market, using EU harmonised EMC standards.
If you cannot demonstrate that KPN has been given leave to supply non-compliant products, or that KPN has made assertions that these products are compliant, as an EU citizen I request that the devices in question are (re-)tested by an independent Notified Body and the results published.
If you are not the appropriate EU body to deal with this issue, please advise who is.
Yours faithfully,
Nigel Coleman
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your email.
Our Agency has no competence in this matter. We are an executive agency with simple implementation tasks related to the Consumer Programme, Health programme and Food safety. We have no policy power, no power to treat legislation or give interpretation on legislation and even less to deal with complaints.
We suggest you to address this complaint to the competent Commission services, that in this specific case seems to be DG ENTR, responsible for the EMC directive (Electro Magnetic Directive 2004/108/EC)) and its correct application by the Member States.
It should be easy to visit the website of DG ENTR and find the tool for filing a complaint. Another way is to use the central Commission help desk which is open for any kind of questions to the European Commission ( check on internet for the phone number).
Kind regards,
CHAFEA team