The European Parliament adopted an own-initiative report on the Commission's review of the consumer acquis. The report recommends that the scope of this review concentrate on updating and creating coherence between the eight consumer protection directives named in the Green Paper.
In presenting this Green Paper the European Commission is calling on interested parties to express their views on the “Review of the Consumer Acquis”, which was launched in 2004 within the context of the Better Regulation goals. The review covers eight consumer Directives.
The overarching aim of the Review is to achieve a real “consumer” internal market that strikes the right balance between i) a high level of consumer protection; ii) enterprise competitiveness and iii) respect for the subsidiarity principle. The Review is regarded as a unique opportunity to modernise the existing consumer Directives and to simplify the current regulatory environment – both for consumers and professionals. To this end the Directives are being reviewed both as a whole and individually with a view to identifying the regulatory gaps. This Green Paper concludes the diagnostic phase of the Review as well as summing up the Commission’s initial findings.
Degree of harmonisation
The House points out that harmonisation must not lead to a decline in the level of consumer protection achieved under certain national arrangements, but should lead to a comparable level of consumer protection in all the Member States.
The choice of a mixed approach
The European Parliament expresses its preference for the adoption of a mixed or combined approach, i.e. a horizontal instrument with the primary goal of ensuring the coherence of the existing legislation and enabling loopholes to be closed by grouping together, in consistent law, cross-cutting issues common to all the directives. The report considers that specific questions which are outside the scope of the horizontal instrument should continue to be considered separately in the sectoral directives.
