Brussels, 23/02/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Parliament internal market and consumer protection committee, chaired by British Labour Party member Arlene McCarthy, has rejected the European Commission proposal to merge internal market action with that of EU consumer protection in a single programme. Following its rapporteur, Marianne Thyssen (EPP-ED, Belgian), the parliamentary committee voted unanimously on 21 February in Brussels to keep the Community action programme on consumer protection for 2007-13 fully autonomous. Ms Thyssen declared that “It is a good signal that the Committee has followed my stance to split these two core programmes as neither the practical nor the policy arguments for a merger had been convincing which is also due to the fact that the Commission has different powers in the two areas. Furthermore, the idea of integrating the two programmes does not square well with the respective social objectives of the civil society”.
Both MEPs and the rapporteur consider that public health service users cannot be treated in the same way as consumers of ordinary services or products. In additional to the substantive and institutional reasons, Ms Thyssen explained that there were also budgetary considerations that justified keeping the two programmes separate. She also proposed enhancing knowledge of and to extend scientific data on consumer demand and behaviour on specific markets. In view of this, the parliamentary committee will therefore call for a budgetary adjustment for a total sum of EUR 233.46 million to fund programme till 2013.
MEPs consider that the European Commission's plan to delegate powers to an executive agency would provide the Commission with more room to pursue its policy tasks but with the proviso that cost-effectiveness analysis shall be carried out first and delegated powers restricted to pure logistical or administrative tasks.