Assembly of Consumer Associations in Europe

Hosted by the European Commission Brussels, 23 November 2000

Romano Prodi, President, European Commission

Food safety is a high priority for my Commission. We have put in place a testing system for BSE, so naturally you find more cases. Yesterday's decision by the Agriculture Committee is sensible. It will have significant cost. France has put measures in place first, so has found cases first.

No control can be prevented or delayed because of cost: we must have the maximum level of safety. We have to apply a precautionary approach.

CEC will publish next year a White Paper on Governance. We will propose a decentralised system, to include citizens locally.

We need innovation and creativity more and more in today's increasingly competitive world. [Applicant countries will experience this as their economics grow enormously].

On BSE I have worked hard not to give undue alarm but to give facts.

François Patriat, French Minister for Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

The French Presidency of the Council attaches much importance to consumer issues. There is an imbalance between consumers and others on the market. We wish to integrate consumer issues into internal market issues. The Internal Market meeting on 30 September will discuss:

• Directive 92/59 on general product safety
• Proposal for a European Food Agency
• Precautionary Principle: a new draft document has been prepared
• GMOs: traceability and labelling
• Redevelopment of e.commerce and distance financial services: dispute resolution

Ria Oomen-Ruijten MEP

Various issues are important for candidate countries to the EUs. States must adopt the acquis (community laws): no candidate country has requested any exception on consumer laws and consumers must be given their role. Consumers have problems in candidate states in assuming this role; they have little economic resource; governments do not yet understand the role of consumers; court and judicial systems are underdeveloped and inexperienced. All these issues need to be addressed. There is a need for alternative, non-court dispute resolution. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) must be created or given greater roles. The policy of leaving consumer and NGO issues to candidate states has failed: the EU needs to provide financial and other assistance.

Applicant states need to concentrate on food safety and development of telecommunications.

Istvan Garai, President of National Association for Consumer Protection in Hungary

A seminar on consumer policy for candidate countries was held on 22 November. It was concluded that the main issues are:

• sharing good practice
• proper enforcement
• education of civil servants

Established consumer organisations urged that (a) consultation of consumers is important in the legislative and other processes: consumer positions are more respected (b) more funds should be made available for consumer education, representation and organisations.

Six workshops were held

1. Preparing consumers for the Euro

2. Fair trading with consumers

3. Safety of services

4. Confidence in e-commerce

5. Food safety: new strategy on GMOs/European Food Authority

6. Consumer participation in standardisation work

Papers were presented by two speakers at each of these sessions which are available at http://europa.eu.int/comm/dgs/health_consumer/events/event32_en.html

The following is a report on the workshop on Safety of Services. The chair, Malcolm Bassett of the UK’s Consumers' Association stated that this is an area in which consumer confidence is fragile and consumers are suspicious: if there is an aeroplane or rail crash, all air and rail systems are suspected.

Presentations were made by Anne Legentil of Union Féminine Civique et Sociale, France and by Christopher Hodges of CMS Cameron McKenna, UK, who took opposing positions on this issue. The polarised positions taken provoked considerable discussion during the afternoon.

Mr Bernardo Delogu of DG SANCO, European Commission, said that the European Parliament has recently requested a Directive on liability and has mentioned some sectors which give rise to problems. He continued that the Commission intends to submit a Communication on this issue at the end of next year in which it will attempt to identify the risks posed, the position on risk and on legislation in the member states, and to identify options for moving forward, both in relation to regulation and liability of providers of services. The Commission wishes not only to contribute to harmonisation of national law so as to remove trade barriers with a high level of safety (based on Article 95 of the EC Treaty) but also to contribute to a higher level of safety of services (using Article 153).

The general conclusions of the discussion were summarised as follows. Safety of services is a vast and complex area. Before taking action, one needs to identify the issues and prioritise them: some safety issues are potentially important but others less so. There was strong support for adopting the techniques of risk assessment, risk management and risk communication. This horizontal approach could be supplemented by vertical, sectoral requirements which might be developed into standards as a result of collaboration between industry and consumers in particular sectors. This would provide a standard against which to measure the way in which the service had been unsafe or defective. The risk analysis methodology would also encourage prevention of risks before they occurred, since many commentators were concerned to avoid risks rather than deal with them after they had occurred. The industry representatives urged that principles of consistency, avoidance of duplication, encouragement of good practice, and proportionality should be observed.

The proposal which was contained in the Commission’s 1990 draft Directive on Safety of Services that there should be liability for property damage, as opposed to for personal injury, was rejected by Mr Hodges, with whom everyone else agreed.

For further information, please contact Chris Hodges at [email protected] or on +44 (0)20 7367 2738.