The European Commission cooperates with its partners on cosmetic products at both the EU and international level. Cooperation at the international level is focused on enhancing trade with non-EU countries.
Bilateral cooperation with the USA and China
The Commission is in close contact with the US Food and Drug Administration. To further enhance cooperation, both parties signed a confidentiality agreement on 2 July 2007.
The Commission is also in regular contact with Chinese authorities, in particular the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ), the National Health and Family Planning Commission (former Ministry of Health, MoH), and the China Food and Drug Administration (CFDA) (former SFDA). The Commission concluded a cooperation framework with AQSIQ on 18 September 2006 and with CFDA (former SFDA) on 23 October 2007.
Multilateral cooperation
In 2007, at the initiative of the Commission’s former Directorate-General for Enterprise and Industry, a network of regulatory authorities called International Cooperation on Cosmetic Regulation (ICCR) was established with the US Food and Drug Administration, Health Canada, and the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare of Japan. This network has a rotating chair and it meets every year to discuss regulatory convergence.
The Brazil National Sanitary Agency (ANVISA) joined ICCR in 2014, while Chinese regulatory authorities who have an interest in ICCR hold observer status in the Steering Committee.
For 2015, the ICCR chair is held by the Commission’s Directorate-General for Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs. The ICCR work programme and the decisions agreed so far are available on the ICCR website.
The Commission is also the EU contact point for notifications under the agreement on technical barriers to trade. The agreement provides for a notification procedure which requires all members of the World Trade Organization (WTO) to inform other members, through the WTO Secretariat, of their proposed technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures. This procedure is a transparency instrument allowing all parties to the agreement and economic operators to become acquainted with the technical regulations and conformity assessment procedures envisaged by other parties before their adoption.