Brussels, 16/11/2004 (Agence Europe) - On Monday, the Council formally adopted, without debate, its "common position" on the directive on unfair commercial practices by companies towards consumers. The political agreement reached in May by the Competitiveness Council (see EUROPE of 19 May, p.12) allowed a step to be taken towards the adoption of the new legislation, which aims to ban aggressive selling and unfair trade practices in the EU- including misleading advertising and misleading omissions- which aim to influence consumers' commercial decisions concerning products. This ban is justified by the fact that such practices harm the economic interests of consumers, sap their confidence in cross-border purchases and stop them from enjoying the full benefits of the single market. The text lays down rules applicable to the whole of the EU, allowing unfair practices to be identified to make it easier to defeat them, and to ensure a high level of consumer protection, as consumers' rights will be clarified. Consumers will thus benefit from the same protection against unfair commercial practices and dishonest professionals, wherever their purchases were made: on the street corner or on a website in another Member State to the one in which they are resident.
The European Commission has welcomed this step forward on legislation which it proposed in June 2003, on the initiative of outgoing Commissioner David Byrne, in order to harmonise divergent national rules which go against the extension of cross-border transactions, competition rules, informed decisions on the part of the consumer and the correct functioning of the internal market. It hopes that the second reading of the European Parliament will run smoothly, allowing the directive to be adopted early in 2005. Once it is adopted, this minimum harmonisation directive will apply only where there are no specific Community provisions. In order to ensure coherence with existing legislation, the directive will modify directive 97/7/EC concerning consumer protection in issues of long-distance contracts, directive 98/27/EC on prohibitory injunctions on the protection of consumer interests, and directive 2002/65/EC on long-distance sales of financial services to consumers. The Member States will be free to keep their stricter national provisions in place for six years.