Brussels, 04/02/2005 (Agence Europe) - The Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection has unanimously approved the report by Mercedes Bresso (PES, Italy) on the directive for protecting consumers against unfair trade practice (misleading promotion, letters making recipients believe they have won prices when there is no prize, advertising aimed at children or parents, traders who pretend to be consumers in order to sell their product, etc.). MEPs hope the report will be discussed during the February plenary session (codecision, second reading) and largely amended the “black list” of unfair trading practices annexed to the proposal of directive (which may be amended only if the directive itself is reviewed).
The Bresso report, which uses the “average” consumer as a reference as in the European Commission proposal, at the same time insists on better definition and protection of “vulnerable” consumers. In order to avoid conciliation, MEPs renounced certain amendments that the Council had rejected at first reading (while it had accepted most of these 58 amendments).