“I don’t need (Apple)’s permission to stop goods entering the market,” Meglena Kuneva told reporters in Brussels. “If goods are dangerous, then we will order a recall.”<\/p>\n
Kuneva has received complaints from Britain, France and Germany, with one involving a girl who caught fire when her phone blew up in front of her.<\/p>\n
Problems with the gadget, which market researchers expect another 23 million people to buy this year, have also been reported by media in Belgium and the United States.<\/p>\n
“We are checking with labs to see if there is a problem with the phone, with their batteries or if there has been misuse of the device,” added Kuneva, the EU’s consumer affairs commissioner.<\/p>\n
“We need to have 100% certainty from one member state that these goods are dangerous.<\/p>\n
“(But) if I receive from the French authorities information that they are dangerous, I will act in the interests of the consumer.<\/p>\n
“I will ask my network for a recall of the product as we did with the Italian (Senseo) coffee machines.<\/p>\n
“There, it was proven that they burned the hands of consumers.”<\/p>\n
US technology giant Apple, which makes the iPhone and the iPod music player, assured the EU on August 14 that the exploding screen cases reported so far were “isolated incidents.”<\/p>\n
Kuneva and a commission spokesperson suggested Apple had blamed overheating lithium ion batteries in its submission.<\/p>\n