The European Commission is preparing a new legislative proposal to close enforcement gaps that allow illegal products sold through e-commerce platforms to reach EU consumers, according to a leaked draft seen by Euronews.
The bill does not explicitly cite China, but it comes as Brussels steps up efforts to tackle the surge of low-value e-commerce imports, particularly from Chinese platforms such as Temu and Shein.
In recent months, senior EU officials have sounded the alarm over the growing trade deficit with Beijing, which they consider unsustainable, having reached a striking €1bn a day in 2025.
“Significant weaknesses remain in ensuring that non-compliant products, particularly those sold online or imported directly from third countries, are effectively identified and removed from the single market,” the document states.
The legislative proposal, named the European Product Act, is expected to be published on 6 October. It also introduces liability for online marketplaces in certain circumstances, a significant centralisation of the market surveillance system, and a new fee.
Chinese imports
The bill aims to crack down on imports of illegal products, particularly from online marketplaces, by ensuring an economic operator in the EU is always legally responsible for non-compliance.
If the economic operator is not established in the EU, it must be either an importer or an authorised representative with a mandate from the manufacturer — a mechanism designed to make the proposal much harder to circumvent by having a seller based outside the EU sell directly to European consumers.
“In the digital environment in particular, market surveillance authorities should be able to bring non-compliance to an end quickly and effectively, notably where the economic operator selling the product conceals its identity or relocates within the Union or to a third country in order to avoid enforcement,” the document continues.
In May, the Commission fined Chinese e-commerce giant Temu €200 million for shortcomings related to dangerous baby toys and faulty chargers. Brussels is also investigating Shein over illegal products, including child-like sex dolls.
Online marketplaces
When an online marketplace places a product on the EU market, the proposal makes it compulsory to verify that each product has a so-called “Digital Product Passport” containing key information on its identity and compliance or a responsibility record created by the manufacturer to allow the identification of the product.
Upon receiving a notification, the marketplace would be obliged to remove the product and prevent its reappearance.
If a marketplace fails those verification and removal obligations, and the product is placed on the EU market without an EU-established responsible economic operator, the marketplace would have to fulfil the obligations of an authorised representative for that product.
Market surveillance fee
The draft also introduces a new Union market surveillance fee on products entering the EU market from third countries and proportionate to the estimated cost to market surveillance authorities of performing their tasks.
In other words, importers would bear the fee, which is intended to cover the additional costs of market surveillance associated with imported products and reduce the burden on the EU budget.
The fee would be lower for products imported in bulk rather than as individual parcels shipped directly to consumers. How exactly it would be calculated has been left to secondary legislation.
This new fee would be separate from the customs “handling fee” proposed as part of the EU’s parallel customs reform, which is intended to cover customs processing costs.
Centralisation of enforcement
The Commission is proposing what is bound to be viewed as a significant power grab, expanding its enforcement powers over an area — product market surveillance — that has traditionally sat at national level.
Specifically, the draft would empower the Commission to carry out investigations and enforcement actions if non-compliant products are likely to have been placed in at least two-thirds of member states and no national authority has opened a market surveillance investigation after being notified.
These enforcement powers are far-reaching: imposing corrective actions, restricting illegal products, ordering withdrawals, imposing penalties, and imposing temporary measures on economic operators or online marketplaces.