. /.   WORLD TRADE  
ORGANIZATION  G/TBT/N/NLD/75 
24 May 2007 
 (07-2127) 
Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade Original:   English 
  
 
NOTIFICATION 
 
The following notification is being circ ulated in accordance with Article 10.6. 
 
1. Member to Agreement notifying:   THE NETHERLANDS
 
If applicable, name of local government involved (Articles 3.2 and 7.2):         
2. Agency responsible:   Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sports 
Name and address (including telephone and fax numbers, e-mail and web-site 
addresses, if available) of  agency or authority designated to handle comments 
regarding the notification shall be indicated if different from above:   National Enquiry 
Point – EC WTO TBT Enquiry Point 
3. Notified under Article 2.9.2 [  X ], 2.10.1 [   ], 5.6.2 [   ], 5.7.1 [   ], other:         
4. Products covered (HS or CCCN where applicable, otherwise national tariff heading. 
ICS numbers may be provided in  addition, where applicable):   Protection of consumers 
from clothing presenting an extremely high risk of fire 
5. Title, number of pages and language(s) of the notified document:   Enforcement 
agreements regarding the fire safety of clothing  within the framework of Article 18(a) of the 
Commodities Act (general product safety artic le) (2 pages, available in English). 
6. Description of content:   As part of its monitoring of compliance with the ban on the sale of 
clothing presenting an extremely high risk of fire under Article 18(a) of the Commodities Act, which is based on Directive 2001/95/EC, th e supervisory authority has concluded an 
agreement with representatives of the Dutch tex tile and clothing sector to the effect that 
clothing, other than nightwear, sold within the Netherlands will comply with the 
flammability test. The test should be perform ed in accordance with ASTM D1230 with a 
flame contact time of 1 second.  The flame spread of 127 mm must be no less than 4 
seconds. 
7. Objective and rationale, including the na ture of urgent problems where applicable:  
The Dutch government wants to protect consumers from clothing presenting an extremely 
high risk of fire.  For this purpose, it is necessary to reach an agreement regarding the 
standard to be used.  The standard most comm only used worldwide to test and evaluate the 
fire safety characteristics of  items of clothing is the Am erican standard ASTM D1230. 
Article 18(a) of the Commodities Act prohibits the sale of unsafe products, in implementation of Directive 2001/95/EC (Dir ective on general product safety).  The Food 
and Consumer Product Safety Authority (Dut ch abbreviation VWA), as the supervisory 
authority for the Commodities Act, has conclude d agreements on the enforcement of Article 
18(a) with regard to clothing presenting an extremely high risk of fire.  Clothing that does 
not comply with the test described in point 6 will be deemed to contravene Article 18(a) of 
the Commodities Act and must therefore not be sold. G/TBT/N/NLD/75 
Page 2  
 
  8. Relevant documents:   Not applicable 
9. Proposed date of adoption:   
Proposed date of entry into force:    12 August 2007 
1 May 2008 
10. Final date for comments:   12 July 2007 
11. Texts available from:  National enquiry point [  X ] or address, telephone and fax 
numbers, e-mail and web-site addresses, if available of the other body:   
http://europa.eu.int/comm/enterprise/tbt/