MEPs rush to vote on unfair sales law

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 17/02/05

The Parliament's vote on the EU directive on unfair commercial practices has been brought forward to next week (21 February).

The internal market and consumer affairs committee has also asked for a debate to take place before the vote because of the importance of the text.

Though unanimity was reached on the proposal at committee level, insiders say that a majority vote in Parliament's plenary is not certain. That is because the final draft was hammered out with the Council behind closed doors, forcing Parliament to give up the majority of its planned amendments.

Secondly, many are seeing the unfair business proposal as a forerunner for the services directive. The European Commission's original proposal on unfair business includes the country of origin principle, under which businesses have to comply with their home law when practising across borders and this is the law that would have counted in the case of a dispute.

But national governments stripped this principle from the proposal and argued instead for full harmonisation of EU law on what constitutes unfair practice.

It now looks as though the same could happen to the services directive, which is highly criticised by trade unions, the European Socialists in Parliament, as well as leaders of France and Germany.

"The internal market committee took the decision to concede the country of origin principle before the Commission announced it would take another look at the services directive," said one Parliamentary official. "That could change things."

But by yesterday's deadline for amendments (16 February), no party chose to modify the proposal, so it will go forward as agreed in committee, needing a simple majority in the Parliament for the Council to be able to formally adopt the text.

The directive, which was originally supposed to be voted on in the Parliament's March plenary session, provides the legal basis for any dispute regarding unfair commercial practice across the EU. It specifies a list of what constitutes such practice, such as aggressive doorstep selling or unfair advertising to children. It also defines the profile of the average and more vulnerable consumers.

After the approval in the European Parliament's Internal Market and Consumer Affairs Committee the MEP's vote on the proposed Directive on unfair commercial practices was brought forward to 21 February 2005. The draft Directive is widely seen as a forerunner for the proposed Directive on services in the Internal Market. Before passing the draft directive on unfair sales on to the European Parliament the Council had erased the country of origin principle from the proposal and argued instead for full harmonisation of EU law on what constitutes unfair practice.

European Commission: DG Health and Consumer Protection: Consumer Affairs: Unfair commercial practices http://ec.europa.eu/comm/consumers/cons_int/safe_shop/fair_bus_pract/index_en.htm

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