Brussels, 13/03/2001 (Agence Europe) - The lack of agreement on the Community patent and on the directive relating to distance selling of financial services was the focal point of the Internal Market/Consumers Council that ended on Monday evening in an atmosphere of failure (see other articles). The Council nonetheless moved forward on other subjects on the agenda. We give below an overview of the results:
Customs Union: The Council noted the Commission's communication on the strategy in this connection and will come back to this issue in June.
European Food Authority (EFA): The Council noted progress made since the beginning of the year on the new food legislation that will establish the EFA and will fix procedures to guarantee food product safety in the Union. The ministers held a brief exchange of views on the missions to be entrusted to the Authority and on the management of an early warning system. The four candidate countries for hosting the EFA (Italy, Spain, France and Finland) spoke of the question of locating the authority's main office. The aim of the Council is to reach a political agreement in June to respect the deadline set by the European Summit of Nice, for a fully operational EFA by early 2002.
Genetically modified organisms: Informed of the Commission's intention to present its legislative proposals in April on the labelling and traceability of GMOs and derived food products, the Council encouraged the Commission to rapidly complete the regulatory framework set out in revised Directive 90/220/EEC.
Internal market and the environment: The Council was informed by the Presidency of progress in the elaboration of the strategy for integrating environmental protection and sustainable development in the internal market policy. It plans to approve this strategy in June to submit it to the Gothenburg Summit as an element in the overall strategy for sustainable development.
Integrated product policy: The Council heard a presentation of the Commission's Green Paper on the new Community strategy that will make it possible to improve the environmental performances of a wide range of products throughout their life cycle (see EUROPE of 9 February, p.7).
E-Europe action plan: Commissioner Erki Liikanen presented the report that will be presented to the Stockholm Summit. He stressed that the interactive use of the Internet in Europe via e-commerce is developing far too slowly. The Council approved the additional list of progress indicators in the implementation of the recommended actions.
Strategy for chemical substances: The Council heard a presentation of the Commission's White Paper that should lead to a new risk assessment policy and a new policy for authorising the marketing of chemical products in the Union, based on a single regulatory framework for all chemical substances. The policy mainly provides for the compulsory registration of around 30,000 substances and the reversal of the burden of proof to increase the responsibility of the chemicals industry (see EUROPE of 15 February, p.8). During a brief exchange of views, four delegations (United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Italy and Portugal) stressed the need to make a more detailed analysis of the economic consequences of this future policy on the industry and above all on its competitiveness. The United Kingdom and the Netherlands considered it important to ensure that such a policy does not result in a rise in the number of tests on animals. The Council will come back to this issue to fuel discussions by the Commission which plans to present new legislative proposals end 2001/early 2002.
Parallel imports/exhaustion of rights conferred by trademarks: The Council held an informal exchange of views on this subject on the initiative of eight Member States which called on the Commission to amend the legislation (unlike the decision it had taken in May 2000 not to touch it), in order to establish a system for the world-wide exhaustion of rights conferred by trademarks, thus authorising parallel imports and allowing prices of brand name products to fall in the Union (see EUROPE of 3 February, p.11).
The Council also informally discussed: a) the work under way to prepare consumers for the changeover to the euro (presentation by Commissioner David Byrne); b) the voluntary code of conduct adopted by the consumers' associations, credit organisations and the Commission concerning pre-contractual information on mortgage loans; c) the over-indebtedness of consumers (the Portuguese delegation, supported by Belgium, called for Community action).