MEPs to defy consumer groups over online trade

Date: 15/04/1999

By Peter Chapman

MEPS are set to throw their weight behind the European Commission's proposals for online consumer protection next week, provoking the wrath of European consumer groups.

The Parliament's legal affairs committee, led by British Socialist Group rapporteur Christine Oddy, is expected to vote in favour of moves to ensure service providers' activities are controlled by the laws in the country where they are based (known as the 'country of origin' principle) rather than in the 'country of destination' where their goods or services are bought and consumed.

The plan is the linchpin of the Commission's draft electronic commerce directive, which is designed to create a level legal playing-field across the Union and is being debated at record speed by the Parliament ahead of its summer elections.

But Ursula Pachl, legal expert with European consumer group BEUC, said applying the country of origin principle to electronic commerce would mean national consumer protection rules were "by-passed and undermined".

BEUC argues that member states should be free to legislate to protect online shoppers in line with their own "values, attitudes and cultural traditions".

Without some kind of country of destination framework, it says, consumers would have to get to grips with the "uncertainty" of legal regimes in all 15 member states. "This is simply not acceptable," the organisation warned MEPs recently.

However, EU industry groups have signalled their support for the Commission's proposals, arguing that applying the country of destination principle would hamper their efforts to enter foreign markets via the Internet.

They claim it would force firms to keep track of complex laws in each member state before they could sell goods or services.