Brussels, 10/10/2011 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission will, on Tuesday 11 October, present its legal instrument on contract law, an optional system expected only to apply to cross-border trade relations (contracts between businesses or contracts between businesses and consumers across the EU) and likely to take the form of a regulation, it is reported in the media.
In an opinion column published in the daily Die Welt on Monday 10 October, Viviane Reding, the lead commissioner on this issue, says that her proposal will mean that EU consumers will have no difficulty in making purchases, including online purchases, in any country, and that a business based, for example, in Germany and selling in other countries, which has opted for the European contract, will no longer have to worry about local legal systems.
The proposal will also concern the online purchase of music and films.
The Commission hopes, thus, to remove the barriers to cross-border trade, many of which “result from divergent sales laws between the 27 member states”, it says. The barriers make selling abroad complicated and costly, especially for small firms and cost at least €26 billion in intra-EU trade every year, according to the Commission. (SP/transl.rt)