Re: Has anyone ever bought german-market electricals?
"a little piece of paper stating that the product meets/has passed all relevant regulatory requirements of <list of german regulatory agencies>, undersigned by a named member of the senior management team of whichever company has their name on the packaging."
Guess what, that's pretty much what a proper Declaration of Conformity has too, although the 'senior' bit may be replaced by 'authorised'. After all, Seniors often have far more important things to do than be held responsible for anything.
The DoC is supposed to be available with the product, directly (e.g. in the destructions) or by contacting the product supplier (e.g. the authorised European representative, if the product is manufactured outside Europe).
The idea that a supplier, when asked for a product's DoC, can legally just say "eff off" (or even just politely ignore the request) is laughable.
" in circumstances such as these you could just phone up the relevant individual and ask them exactly what went on, and haul them into court if necessary.
And that appears to be the *intention* behind the CE/DoC rules here too.
Obviously that kind of thing (like suppliers following product liability legislation) is completely impermissible in the UK.
Re: self certification
There is clearly a problem with abuse of self certification. However, what's actually in the rules is stuff like:
"'You must keep certain documentation once you have placed the CE marking onto your product. This information can be requested at any time by the Market Surveillance Authorities to check that a CE marking has been legitimately placed on a product."
The idea presumably being that in circumstances such as these, anyone who has been fraudulently misrepresenting what went on can be held accountable for it. Not that it ever happens.