Negotiators from the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a political agreement on the evening of Monday 22 June on the proposal for a directive which will introduce collective redress procedures in the EU initiated by qualified entities representing consumers deliberately harmed by unfair practices by the same company infringing EU law.
The entire text having been reviewed, it took 8.5 hours of negotiations to achieve this result. The pledge of the outgoing Croatian Presidency of the Council has been fulfilled (see EUROPE 12509/18).
"After more than 8 hours of virtual negotiations, we have finished the last and very constructive trilogue on collective redress", the Croatian Ambassador and Deputy Permanent Representative to the EU, Goran Štefanić, said on Twitter.
"Parliament, in cooperation with the Council and the Commission, has sought to strike a balance between the legitimate protection of consumer interests and the need for legal certainty for businesses. We have, for example, ensured that each Member State has at least one entity qualified to rule on redress, while putting in place, in exchange, safeguards against vexatious recourse", said Parliament's chief negotiator, Geoffroy Didier (EPP, France).
"That's great news. It was worth the time. There will be class actions all over Europe", Tiemo Wölken (S&D, Germany), the group's spokesperson on legal affairs, reacted on Twitter.
For the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the European Consumer Organisation, the agreement is "a huge landmark". "When companies like Volkswagen can ignore the harm done to 8 million people just because going to court alone is too onerous for most, it shows how much this collective redress law was needed", said its Director General, Monique Goyens.
The directive will cover, inter alia, air and rail passenger rights, tourism, health services, financial services, energy, data protection and product liability laws.
The Agreement provides that each Member State shall designate at least one qualified national entity. The eligibility criteria for such entities will be a matter for national law. For cross-border representative actions, the criteria of the Directive will apply and there will be mutual recognition by Member States of the entities qualified for such cross-border actions.
On Tuesday 23 June, experts from the Commission, EU Council and Parliament worked on consolidating the legal text, the consolidated version of which will be sent to the Member States for their consideration.
The Member States' ambassadors to the EU (Coreper) will only be informed briefly on Wednesday that a provisional agreement has been reached. A discussion in Coreper is scheduled for 30 June, with a view to approval. However, formal approval by the EU Council, at first reading, will not take place until September, once the text has been prepared by the lawyer linguists. It will then be up to Parliament to approve the EU Council's position at second reading. The Directive will then be considered adopted. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)