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Reports and Memo's
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Brussels, october 1995
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Decisive years for european consumer protection
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Protection of acquired consumer protection rights
There is hardly a lack of resolutions and directives on protection and information of the consumer. Even the basic rights of the European consumer had already been defined in the First Programme of 1975 and adopted in the framework of a Council Resolution. According to this Resolution, the consumer is no longer considered simply as a purchaser or user of goods and services for personal, family or collective needs but as somebody who participates in all the aspects of the economic and social life...
The Single Act (Article 100(a)(3)) likewise requests the Commission to take as a base of its proposal a high level of protection in the fields of health, safety, environment and consumer protection but this in no way represents a commitment for the Council to adopt a similarly high level in its decisions!
As far as Council directives are concerned, they must of course be transposed and observed by the Member States but they have nonetheless certain liberties of transposition, not to mention controls.
A genuine commitment towards improving consumer protection in the European Union was really only included in the Maestricht Treaty on the European Union (Article (3)(129)(a)) according to which the Community will contribute towards obtaining a « high level of protection ».
However the Maestricht Treaty also laid down the principle of subsidiarity whereby the Community will only intervene in those instances where the objectives at Member State level cannot be satisfactorily reached. Several Member States believe that this can be best achieved by themselves.
According to the description given by the national governments, the majority of Member States have extensive structures at their disposal so that almost everything seems to be in perfect working order. Nevertheless a careful assessment of the report of the relevant directorate-general at the Commission on the activities for the protection of the consumer in the individual Member States, shows that they do not seem to be very numerous nor very significant and this is particularly true of the southern Member States. However the Member States do not seem to be in favour of more extensive activities at European level on behalf of the Commission.
The European consumer organisations will have to take care that the subsidiarity principle will not serve as an instrument for certain governments towards preventing the attainment of a higher level of consumer protection at EU level or undertaking anything contrary at national level either!
All consumers in the internal market should be guaranteed the same level of protection and the same rights and this will only be possible by the means of EU-wide regulations!
Just recently, since the Governmental Conference in Edinburgh, « lists » of directives that should be abolished have been produced as well as lists of proposals that should be withdrawn or no longer worked out. Finally, the Molitor Report submits no less than 120 concrete proposals for deregulation of which about 12 in the chapter on food hygiene that have to be « simplified ».
Nobody is against simplifications and especially codifications as long as the acquired level of protection is not affected. However it is precisely in this case - that of vertical directives, for example - that a lowering of the protection level, e.g., the quality of foodstuffs, is to be feared. It is no secret that industry in particular is calling for simplifications in order to become more competitive. That is why the European consumer organisations will closely follow the Governmental Conference in 1996 on the revision of the Treaty of the Union. They will have to exert pressure so that Article 129(a) is maintained and consumer protection is improved rather than abolished.
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[ TABLE OF CONTENTS ]
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