Progress was made by EU legislators in Brussels on Wednesday 21 June on better protecting consumer rights against cross-border online infringements by dishonest traders in the single market and thus increasing EU citizens’ trust in the digital single market (see EUROPE 11750).
The Maltese Presidency, acting on behalf of the Council, and negotiators from the European Parliament and the Commission reached a preliminary trialogue agreement on Wednesday evening on the draft regulation that seeks to update and strengthen cooperation between EU national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws.
“Trust in e-commerce by citizens and companies is an essential condition for making the digital single market more attractive and dynamic. The safeguarding of consumers' rights and interests will be better preserved, including for shopping online, thanks to this new harmonised framework”, said Maltese Minister for the Economy, Investment and Small Business Chris Cardona in a press release.
The revision of the existing consumer protection cooperation framework will give national authorities more powers of investigation and application of the law. Agreement was reached to resolve the final outstanding points.
Commission’s role. In large-scale EU-wide infringements, the Commission will play a coordinating role. It will be able to initiate coordinated action but it will be the member states that will take the steps to bring a halt to the fraudulent practices. The Commission and Parliament wanted to give broad responsibility to the Commission but the member states pointed out that that it does not have the investigative capability to find evidence of scams.
Role of consumers’ associations. An improved alert mechanism will allow competent authorities immediately to notify the Commission and other competent authorities of any reasonable suspicion of an intra-Union infringement. But, while Parliament and the Commission wanted a major role to be given to consumers’ and traders’ associations in this alert mechanism, the Presidency imposed safeguards to prevent any potential problems. Only those organisations that have the expertise and can offer the necessary guarantees will be able to raise the alert. It was a French proposal, supported by the Council, that enabled this compromise.
Consumer compensation. This was the most important point for Parliament. The compromise allows for traders who have committed an infringement to give a commitment to remedy the damage caused to the consumer, either by ending the contract, reimbursement or return of the goods delivered. In other words, traders undertake to find a solution and the member state to provide the consumer with information on the recourse open to them.
Timescale for implementation of the regulation. There will be a 24-month lead-in period for the regulation (not 18 months) and its scope will be wider. It will cover 25 pieces of applicable European legislation (rather than 18 as initially planned), including the new regulation the portability of online content and the services directive, though not the regulation under discussion on putting a stop to geo-blocking.
The provisional trialogue agreement will now go for approval to the committee of the member states’ ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) on 30 June and to the Parliament’s IMCO committee before the middle of July before the Council and Parliament pass it. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)