Deputies seek Rome II defamation compromise

The European Parliament is soon to begin tough negotiations with the Council of Ministers and the European Commission after MEPs voted to include defamation and road traffic accidents in a proposed law on cross-border disputes.

The Council and Commission backed dropping defamation from the scope of the original proposal because of pressure from some member states - Sweden, Finland, the UK and Ireland - amid fears that it would restrict press freedom.

The Parliament’s proposal to allow courts to take into account a victim’s habitual residence when awarding damages after a road traffic accident will also be contested during conciliation negotiations. According to MEPs, for example, a British holiday-maker injured in a car accident in Hungary would have damages, follow-up care and effects on their career assessed according to British practice.

The overall aim of the legislation, proposed in 2003 and known as Rome II, was to establish which member state’s law should apply for civil and commercial cross-border disputes where there are no contracts between the parties, such as defective products, pollution, unfair competition and traffic accidents.

UK Liberal MEP Diana Wallis, the Parliament’s rapporteur on the issue, said a compromise on defamation could involve putting a review clause into the legislation whereby defamation would be initially dropped from the proposal and added at a later date when related legal issues on jurisdiction are cleared up. One Swedish diplomat said a compromise on this issue was possible but that "we would rather not see it being dealt with at all in the proposal". Sweden is fearful of having its courts applying other member states laws on defamation when "basically we would rather just apply our national law to such cases", he added.

Wallis said the issue of damages in road traffic accidents could not be removed from the proposal unless the Commission gave firm assurances it would address the issue in separate legislation. "In 2004 there were something like 52,000 road traffic accidents in Germany that involved foreign nationals… there are a lot of people affected by this," she said.

She said the two institutions had expected "to pat us on the head and send us away" but the Parliament as a full legislative partner for the first time in such law had to be listened to, she added.

The European Parliament is soon to begin tough negotiations with the Council of Ministers and the European Commission after MEPs voted to include defamation and road traffic accidents in a proposed law on cross-border disputes.