Brussels, 09/10/2015 (Agence Europe) - During the plenary sitting of Thursday 8 October, parliamentarians at the European Parliament asked in an oral question addressed to the European Commission by Evelyne Gebhardt (S&D, Germany) and Andreas Schwab (EPP, Germany) for an end to nationality-based discrimination and place of residence for online purchases.
Gebhardt said it was preposterous for the big Single Market to be so unfavourable to consumers with obstacles to online purchasing and action must be taken. Andreas Schwab said that EU legislation does not allow discrimination or different treatment of consumers depending on their nationality or place of residence except for properly motivated legal reasons. He wondered how far to go in harmonisation because it is difficult to determine identical conditions for all.
The debate was about the question of geo-blockage and access to online purchasing of goods and services from other countries in the light of the EU Directive on consumer rights (Article 8 (3)) and the services directive (Article 20 (2)). The oral question to the Commission notes that many big online sellers still practise discrimination against consumer, either by communicating a different price for goods or services depending on where the consumer is located or by raising the price unjustifiably for cross-border delivery, or by simply refusing to deliver to a particular member state. Such practices could be illegal under the services and consumer directives, but they remain current, accentuated by the expansion e-commerce.
If goods and digital content cannot cross borders, Europeans will not buy across-borders and the advantages of the Single Market have to benefit both companies and consumers, said Dita Charanzová (ALDE, Czech Republic). Notis Marias (ECR, Greece) said the EU must take immediate measures to amend the functioning of electronic commerce without flouting consumer rights. This was echoed by Dawid Bohdan Jackiewicz (ECR, Poland) who also wants rapid action from the Commission, pointing out that geographical blockage is one of the worst discriminations and is the biggest barrier to the digital single market.
On behalf of the Commission, Humanitarian Aid and Crisis Management Commissioner Christos Stylianides agreed that the current situation cannot go on and the Single Market must offer everyone the possibility of access wherever they happen to be in Europe, even from another member state. He said, however, that a balance must be struck between the various freedoms, viz. contractual freedoms and the freedoms of consumers. He said there was no obligation for uniform sales and prices in the Single Market but the Commission would issue proposals as part of its monitoring of the Digital Single Market strategy to put an end to the existing legal haziness. (Original version in French by Isabelle Lamberty)