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Israel’s Import Reform: Opportunities, Barriers and Weak Spots

At the beginning of the month, some of the legal amendments under the reform named “What’s Good for Europe is Good for Israel” came into effect. These amendments are designed to change import regulations in Israel and align them with EU regulations, thereby facilitating the entry of more market players and increasing product variety, ultimately aimed at reducing prices. Below is a brief explanation of how the reform is expressed in law, how it differs from previous reforms, and what potential weaknesses need attention.

Until today, the import process for many products included verification they met the requirements of unique Israeli standards. Over the years, the determination of which products required compliance with Israeli standards was often made without proper risk management, at times based on absurd claims, and occasionally pushed by stakeholders who sat on the standardization committees as experts in specific industries. Therefore, a new pathway was created to allow the import of products that are already approved for European markets, without the burden of compliance with unique Israeli standard requirements. This new pathway was made possible by an amendment to The 1953 Standards Law, establishing that products can be imported if they comply with the adopted European regulations listed in the fifth appendix to the law.

The European Union adopted a series of directives, or guidelines, known as the “New Approach”, covering a wide range of products including cosmetics, medical devices, construction products, toys, machinery and more, aimed at facilitating free and open trade with all its accompanying advantages and preventing unnecessary barriers between countries.

These European directives emphasize essential requirements that products must meet upon entering the market, such as the protection of public health and safety, preventing noise nuisance and the like, and are binding as far as outcomes, unlike standards that require compliance with technical specifications such as specific measures of height, weight, and so on. Based on risk management, the compliance with certain global standards can in some cases prove compliance with the directives’ requirements. Moreover, the directives determine how and when products can be marked as compliant with the relevant directives and thus permitted to move freely in the single market. Over the years, other non-EU countries also decided to adopt this approach. And unlike previous reforms, in which Israeli standards were adjusted to match global standards while still maintaining mandatory compliance not necessarily required elsewhere (thus creating a significant barrier to entry), the current reform adopts these directives into law.

It was decided to maintain the official standards mechanism in parallel with the new directives, and adjust compliance requirements according to products that require official standard compliance; therefore, directives not part of the “New Approach” were also added to the law, which now includes 43 directives. Twenty eight directives will come into effect during 2025, and most others in 2026.
A major potential weakness of the reform is the categorization as exceptions of many products that will continue to require compliance with unique Israeli standards, to be decided on by the Exceptions Committee established for this purpose that will operate over the next two years. The committee will need to reject all attempts to include exceptions when request for an exemption is aimed at maintaining trade barriers for the benefit of specific parties without sufficient proof that European regulations are unsuitable for their case due to some circumstance unique to Israel.

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