MEPs add weight to new Union pricing proposals

Date: 13/02/1997

CONSUMERS are likely to be faced with a barrage of different prices when they go shopping in two years' time, as the Union enters the single currency era.

The European Parliament is poised to tighten up the new pricing arrangements being considered by EU governments by insisting that shops be required - rather than merely encouraged - to indicate the price of goods not just by item but also by weight.

Under plans to be debated by MEPs in Strasbourg next week, prices would also have to be displayed in three separate ways during the single currency transition period, which would run from the euro's formal introduction in January 1999 to the actual launch of the new notes and coins three years later.

The cost of items would have to be given in a member state's national currency and also denominated in euro in two separate ways, showing the actual selling price and the unit price per kilogram, litre or metre. The prices would include value added tax, all other taxes and the costs of all services for which consumers might be obliged to pay.

The move reflects concern among MEPs to ensure that shoppers are able to make valid comparisons between differently priced goods and to prepare them for the practical and psychological hurdles they will have to overcome as familiar national currencies become a thing of the past.

MEPs are expected to reject the argument put forward by EU governments that the unit pricing requirement should not apply to certain enterprises if this would create an excessive burden for them.

But in a bid to ease the weight of the future legislation on small businesses, the full Parliament is likely to give small retailers up to six years to adapt to the new rules.

The report prepared by Dutch Christian Democrat MEP Ria Oomen-Ruijten also foresees the possibility of certain exemptions to the general pricing rule.

It suggests member states may decide not to apply the unit pricing obligations to items sold in vending machines, to sales by itinerant traders or between private individuals and to food sold in restaurants, hotels, cinemas, theatres, schools, universities, hospitals and employees' canteens.

Explaining the Parliament's position, British Socialist MEP Philip Whitehead said: “My priority is to have a sufficient period of time for the implementation of these measures and a review of the cost of their introduction.”

Consumer groups have argued for years that the complexities of the present system should be simplified.

The European consumers' organisation BEUC has been pressing MEPs in recent months to back a compulsory unit pricing system for all products.

This, it believes, would provide consumers with the information essential for them to be able to compare prices.