Brussels, 20/03/2003 (Agence Europe) - Adopting three reports last week on the EU's future consumer policy, the European Parliament supported the Commission's priorities for 2002-2006 as long as the proposed strategy is fleshed out with more concrete measures. It also gave the go-ahead for the drawing up of a framework directive on customer loyalty measures, backed up by specific legislation for certain sectors and codes of conduct to remedy market fragmentation and increase consumer confidence in buying within the single market. But the EP rejected the idea of maximum harmonisation of national legislation, fearing that this suggestion by the Commission would lead to a levelling down of consumer protection and hence be counter-productive. Opposed to the Commission's long-term aim of maximum harmonisation of national legislation, the EP pointed out that minimum harmonisation is inscribed in the Treaty and asserted that it would be more appropriate to determine the level of harmonisation required by taking a case by case approach.
Based on a report by British Labour MEP Phillip Whitehead, on the Commission Communication "Strategy for consumer policy 2002-2006", the European Parliament supports the three objectives outlined, namely assuring a high common level of consumer protection by harmonising the safety of goods and services and by dealing with economic and legal problems that still prevent consumers from taking full advantage of the single market; guaranteeing effective application of consumer protection legislation across the entire EU; and getting consumer organisations more involved in Community policy-making. The MEPs want a fourth objective of adding integration of consumer policy to all relevant EU policies. The amendments voted through in plenary called for concrete measures such as the urgent preparation of legislation on the safety of services, checking the effectiveness of the EC labelling system to ensure products actually do meet the EU's safety requirements, drawing up a draft directive on protecting hotels against fire hazards, improving the directive on the part time use of buildings, setting down optimum health and safety measures when assessing chemicals, boosting consumer confidence in e-commerce, developing a single market in financial services (insurance, investment and banking) for the benefit of consumers and Community action to promote sustainable production and consumption. Following its rapporteur's recommendations, the EP urges the Commission to facilitate citizens' access to information about consumer rights in the internal market.
In the opinion of Béatrice Patrie, the French Socialist MEP who wrote the report on the impact of the Green Paper on consumer protection on the future of European consumer policy, the idea is to get to introduce the most favourable consumer clauses. It is particularly important, she said, that the approach of harmonisation EU consumer law not lead to a levelling down of consumer protection on existing national legislation. Following Patrie's recommendations, the EP supports the aim of harmonising legislation on sales practices by first establishing a general framework and then vertical legislation on specific practices such as sales promotion. It though the idea of introducing a general loyalty to consumers clause was a good one as long as it is based on precise criteria and objectives (behaviour aimed at taking advantage of consumers' occasional or permanent physical or mental vulnerability and any sales approach that can be described as a physical or moral constraint) and the directive mainly covers sales practices against the consumer interest. In this connection, the EP feels the framework directive should include measures from existing directives on, for example, deceptive advertising, and should include concrete examples of each disloyal sales practice and a regularly updated black list of such practices in an annex to the directive. Convinced of the need to provide full, detailed information (on the origin, ingredients and presence of dangerous substances in food, for example) to allow consumers to make an informed choice (amendment tabled by the Greens/EFA), the EP recommends this information be included in the loyalty criterion and suggests that the framework directive set out territorial competence principles and the law that will cover consumers if they take cases to court.
The Parliament, which is favour of adding codes of conduct to the legislation, has stated its preference for co-regulation over self-regulation to allow it, along with Council, to have a say in choosing the objectives, and to allow it to guarantee procedural transparency, which would include consultation with representatives from industry and consumers.
On the basis of the report by Marianne L. P. Thyssen (EPP-ED, Belgium) on "the future of the legal rights of the consumer in the light on the Green Paper on consumer protection", Parliament calls for simpler, more comprehensible and more coherent legislation, which would be easier to respect. It also believes that any infringement of a code of conduct should be punished by legal authorities as equivalent to unfair practice, and pleads for a co-ordinated approach between the framework directive on consumer protection and the regulation on sales promotions. Parliament rejected amendments tabled by the Greens/FTA, who want to see a European labelling system, complete with a fair-trade logo and a logo for companies respecting a social charter, to allow consumers to play an active part in promoting sustainable development. The same group's proposal requesting a general directive on environmental quality of products and services on offer fell on equally stony ground. During the debate, Ms Thyssen stressed that the legal committee would have preferred a clause forbidding unfair practices. She felt the Commission's green paper was "important on an economic level, but on a political level too" because, she said, it sets the record straight on a couple of wrong impressions- such as the internal market being of interest only to industry, or that 'internal market' and 'high level of consumer protection' constitutes an oxymoron, or that consumer rights could prejudice competition. "That is not true. They are two sides of the same coin", she said.
The debate: MEPs insist on information for the consumer
Ms Oomen Ruijten (EPP-ED, Netherlands), rapporteur on the Commission opinion on women's rights, felt the aim should be "to protect the most vulnerable groups, particularly in the enlargement countries". Insisting that the directive should not be too complicated for consumers and consumer organisations, she said that the imperative of clarity could only be attained if the text were based on a high level of protection and maximum harmonistation. Mr Bushill-Matthews (EPP-ED, UK), speaking out vehemently against passive smoking, pleaded for "the right to breathe pure air to be recognised as a fundamental consumer right".
Believing that liberalisation of services must go hand in hand with an improvement in their quality now that it is known that the introduction of the euro will not bring about price increases, Ms Corbey (PES, Netherlands) stressed the importance of offering "political support" to the consumer to prevent abuse. Jules Maaten (ELDR, Netherlands) said that "the consumer is the driving force behind economic growth”, and that "it is vital to keep consumers correctly informed on labelling, wherever they live". He also pleaded for damaging and unfair commercial behaviour such as harassment of vulnerable groups to be condemned and punished. Mr Caudron ( GUE/NGL, France) expressed the view that "consumer protection policies depend too heavily on being frog-marched towards the realisation of the single market", and the regret that "this is used as an excuse for getting rid of any idea of public service". "Are we talking here of consumption, or consumerism?" asked Mr Blokland (EDD, Netherlands), who pleaded in favour of a legal framework guaranteeing minimum standards, on the basis of article 153 of the Treaty.
Speaking for the European Commission, David Byrne stressed that in its attempts to resolve the outstanding issues, the Commission had carried out a study of the experiences of 16,000 consumers and 3,000 companies in terms of cross-border transactions, as well as an impact assessment of the various legislative options contained in the green paper. 80% of Europeans would buy more if they enjoyed the same legal protection abroad, 46% of companies think that a framework directive would increase the number of transactions, and 68% feel that maximum harmonisation would be the most effective of the options. The Commissioner added that the Commission has compared national laws on unfair practices, and that the final touches were being put to a University comparative study "to get an overall view of the nuances".