If you sell products or services in multiple European countries, a frequently asked question is whether the same rules apply everywhere. The answer is nuanced: many obligations in the areas of product safety, packaging, digital accessibility and personal data come from European legislation and thus form a common basis. But how those rules are implemented, who oversees them and what additional requirements a country imposes on top of that can differ by country.
That difference often does not lie in the core of the rule, but in its implementation: which authority oversees it, in which language information must be available, whether local registration is required, and how an obligation such as extended producer responsibility for packaging is arranged per country. For a business that only operates in the Netherlands, this is rarely a problem. As soon as you also supply to Germany, Belgium or France, it does matter.
A European basis, a national implementation
European regulations and directives do not all work the same way in practice. A regulation in principle applies directly in each Member State, but even then there is room for national supervisory authorities, national contact points and national language requirements. A directive goes a step further: it prescribes an objective, but each country implements that in its own legislation. As a result, the core of an obligation can be the same everywhere, while the way you comply with it — which form, which authority, which deadline — differs by country.
This applies for example to packaging, where producer responsibility often runs through a national system, and to product safety, where the obligation to have a responsible person within the EU applies everywhere, but the precise implementation and supervision can differ by country. For the exact explanation per subject, we refer you to the official texts and the supervisory authorities responsible for them; reglia itself makes no substantive statement about them.
Why this often remains invisible for an SME
An installation company that sources materials from Germany, a webshop that also supplies to Belgium and France, or a service provider with customers in multiple countries: in all cases, the number of obligations grows with the number of countries in which you are active. The problem is not that the rules are complicated, but that they are scattered across different sources, in different languages, with different authorities. If you look that up separately for each country, you quickly lose sight of what is actually relevant for your own situation.
That overview begins with knowing which platform covers which subject. On the page with all connected platforms you can see which subjects are covered and for which type of business that is relevant, so you can assess which obligations apply to your situation.
What this means for your business file
If you are active in multiple countries, the data being requested also changes: address details, language versions of documentation, or a local contact point. That is one of the reasons why the same business file is often filled in multiple times — for each country and each platform again. Reglia solves that part by maintaining one business and product file that is read by the connected platforms, so you don't have to enter the same basic data again for each country and each subject.
How that works exactly and what does and does not happen with your data is described on the page about how reglia works. If you want to know how reglia handles the data you enter and how that is secured, please visit the page about security and privacy.
The overview stays with you
Whether an obligation in the Netherlands, Germany or France is filled in slightly differently is ultimately a question for the regulator or lawyer who handles the relevant subject. What reglia does do is ensure that you don't need a new account, a new password and a new form for each country to see what applies to your business.
Curious which platforms there are and which subjects they cover, even if you are active internationally? Check out the overview of connected platforms and see which of them match your situation.