The EU Battery Regulation replaced the older Battery Directive with a directly applicable regulation, which tightens several obligations for anyone placing batteries — or products containing batteries — on the EU market, including importers of China-sourced goods with embedded batteries.
Due diligence on raw material sourcing (cobalt, lithium, nickel, natural graphite) is one of the newer obligations for larger economic operators, requiring supply-chain due diligence reporting similar in spirit to conflict-minerals rules in other sectors, phased in over several years rather than all at once.
Labeling requirements cover capacity, chemistry, a separate-collection symbol, and increasingly a QR code linking to a digital battery passport for certain battery categories, which is a physical product requirement separate from any customs paperwork.
For an importer of China-made electronics or battery-powered devices, the practical question to resolve before a new product line ships is which specific battery-category obligations apply — the thresholds and requirements scale with battery type and the importer's size, so this is worth confirming against the current regulation text rather than assumed from a previous product.