New Laws on Product Safety and Market Surveillance in Albania

The Albanian government has recently adopted two new laws regulating the consumer product safety and market surveillance — the Law on General Product Safety and the Law on Accreditation and Surveillance Relating to the Market. The laws entered into force on December 26, 2011 and January 11, 2012, respectively.

The adoption of these two laws is one of the Albanian government’s goals outlined in the national IP strategy for the 2010-2015 period.

The Internal Market Inspectorate has been established as a body that operates under the Central Technical Inspectorate and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Energy. Its main responsibility is to ensure the safety of non-food consumer products by instigating internal market inspections.

The establishment of the Inspectorate is a significant step forward in the enforcement of IP rights, as the rights holders can now combat counterfeits distributed on the internal market by filing an application with the Inspectorate. The Inspectorate now has the right to seize and destroy counterfeit and unsafe products.

The two laws also establish the rules for the organization, operation and accreditation of conformity assessment bodies and provide the CE mark requirements.

The laws have transposed the Directive 2001/95/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council, the Regulation (EC) No 765/2008 of the European Parliament and of the Council, and the Decision No 768/2008/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council.

For more information, please contact Melina Nika at our Albania office.

Source: Albanian government website