EU Consumer Law – Have Your Say

EDITORS NOTE

Micheál Martin, TD, Minister for Enterprise, Trade & Employment has announced that the European Commission is holding a public consultation on the recently adopted Green Paper on the Review of the Consumer Acquis. The eight directives, under review, cover the topics such as: package holidays, unit pricing, timeshares, distance contracts, unfair terms in contracts, consumer goods and associated guarantees, injunctions and contracts negotiated away from business premises. It is important to note that what is commonly referred to, as the 'Consumer Acquis' does not cover all consumer protection legislation in the EU. The recently adopted Directive on Unfair Commercial Practices falls outside the Consumer Acquis for instance. In addition, many provisions aiming at protecting consumers can be found in sector-specific EU legislation, such as legislation in the field of e-commerce, financial services.

The Minister would like to encourage the Irish public to actively participate in this very important debate, which concerns a number of consumer issues. The Review of the Consumer Acquis can provide a unique opportunity to modernize the existing consumer directives, in order to simplify and improve the regulatory environment for both professionals and consumers and improve or extend, if necessary, the protection offered to consumers. To this end, the directives are being reviewed as a whole and individually to identify regulatory gaps and shortcomings affecting all of them as well as problems specific to individual directives. In addition, the Commission evaluated how the various Directives under review have been transposed in the Member States.

Most directives that are part of the Consumer Acquis are prescriptive rather than principle-based. Most of them no longer meet fully the requirements of today’s rapidly evolving markets. This is particularly important in the face of the growing importance of digital technology and digital services (e.g. music downloads), which raise controversial issues relating to user rights, as compared to the sale of physical goods. Technological developments are creating new channels for transactions between businesses and consumers, which are not covered by consumer legislation.

The existing EU consumer protection rules are fragmented basically in two ways. Firstly, the current directives allow Member States to adopt more stringent rules in their national laws (minimum harmonisation) and many Member States have made use of this possibility in order to ensure a higher level of consumer protection. Although there is nothing wrong with this, it does create the possibility of 27 different sets of rules and this may deter consumers from shopping outside their own member states where they might find greater bargains. Secondly, many issues are regulated inconsistently between directives or have been left open. During the preliminary phase of the Review, business and consumer stakeholders have pointed out a number of examples of regulatory fragmentation, which create problems.

The differences usually trigger extra compliance costs for businesses, including costs of acquiring relevant legal advice, changing information and marketing material or contracts, or in the event of non-compliance, possibly litigation costs.

From the consumers’ point of view, EU studies have shown that 56% of consumers were of the opinion that, when purchasing goods and services from businesses in other Member States, businesses are less likely to respect consumer protection laws. 71 % believed it is harder to resolve problems such as complaints, returns, price reductions, guarantees etc. and 65 % considered it to be more problematic returning a product bought by distance selling within the cooling-off period when purchasing from a supplier in a different Member State.

CONSUMER DIRECTIVES UNDER REVIEW

• Council Directive 85/577/EEC of 20 December 1985 to protect the consumer in respect of contracts negotiated away from business premises, OJ L 372, 31.12.1985, p. 31.
• Council Directive 90/314/EEC of 13 June 1990 on package travel, package holidays and package tours, OJ L 158, 23.6.1990, p. 59.
• Council Directive 93/13/EEC of 5 April 1993 on unfair terms in consumer contracts, OJ L 95, 21.4.1993, p. 29.
• Directive 94/47/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 October 1994 on the protection of purchasers in respect of certain aspects of contracts relating to the purchase of a right to use immovable properties on a timeshare basis, OJ L 280, 29.10.1994, p. 83.
• Directive 97/7/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 1997 on the protection of consumers in respect of distance contracts, OJ L 144, 4.6.1997, p. 19.
• Directive 98/6/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 February 1998 on consumer protection in the indication of the prices of products offered to consumers, OJ L 80, 18.3.1998, p. 27.
• Directive 98/27/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 19 May 1998 on injunctions for the protection of consumers' interests, OJ L 166, 11.6.1998, p. 51.
• Directive 1999/44/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 May 1999 on certain aspects of the sale of consumer goods and associated guarantees, OJ L 171, 7.7.1999, p. 12.

Replies (marked “Response to the Green Paper on the Review of Consumer Acquis”) should be submitted by 15 May 2007 to the following Address:

European Commission

Directorate-General Health and Consumer Protection

Rue de la Loi 200

1049 Brussels

Belgium

Or by e-mail to SANCO-B2@ec.europa.eu

A copy of the Consultation paper is available at: -

http://www.djei.ie/commerce/consumer/issues.htm