Kuneva targets e-commerce rules

In her first major task as European commissioner for consumer protection, Meglena Kuneva will next week (7 February) release a green paper reviewing EU legislation safeguarding citizen’s rights.

The paper will highlight online commerce as an area in which complex rules are holding back businesses and disadvantaging consumers.

But finding remedies will be less easy than identifying difficulties.

With the EU short of a solid legal basis for meaningful action, the mood among consumers campaigners is downbeat.

Next week’s green paper reviews eight directives covering areas ranging from distance selling to provisions for the timeshare market. The main purpose of the review is to simplify rules while making them more relevant to the digital era.

A copy of the green paper, seen by European Voice, states that most EU rules on consumer protection "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".

"There are shortcomings in the present directives," said a Commission official. "They are not equipping consumers to get a fair deal online. Online markets are being held back by complex rules that aren’t helping business or consumers at the moment."

While consumer groups welcome the European Commission’s efforts to overhaul old rules, some of which date back to the 1980s, there are concerns that Kuneva will follow the pro-industry approach taken by Commissioner Markos Kyprianou, who previously held the consumer protection portfolio.

Kuneva’s review, they say, will be more about strengthening the internal market by cutting red tape for businesses than safeguarding consumer protection.

"It addresses industry’s concerns on differences in law which hinder them from doing business cross-border," said Cornelia Kutterer, a legal adviser at European consumer organisation BEUC. "It seems that the main concern is the internal market. Consumer protection is not considered as much as we’d like."

According to BEUC, the underlying reason for the Commission’s lack of muscle in the area of consumer protection stems from shortcomings in community law. This view is shared by the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC), the EU consultative body comprising social and economic partners.

The EESC claims that the current basis for the Union’s consumer law, Article 153 of the EC?Treaty, is being incorrectly applied by the Commission because of inadequacies in terms of drafting. "Something is wrong when the legal basis, which is the main instrument to sustain a policy, is not applied," said Jorge Pegado Liz, EESC rapporteur.

"We [the committee] feel that the Commission is not willing to follow suggestions to create new and more effective measures for consumers. The approach is almost the opposite," he said.

In the absence of solid legal provisions under Article 153, the Commission has reverted to Article 95, which sanctions harmonisation measures for the internal market, say critics.

A Commission official defended Kuneva’s approach. "Her [Kuneva’s] clear conviction is that consumer interests can be very well served by a functional internal market," the official said. "She sees no fundamental contradiction between an internal market and consumer protection."

In her first major task as European commissioner for consumer protection, Meglena Kuneva will next week (7 February) release a green paper reviewing EU legislation safeguarding citizen’s rights.