Verbatim report of proceedings

Thursday, 26 March 2009 - Strasbourg

Collective redress (debate)

  Evelyne Gebhardt, on behalf of the PSE Group. – (DE) Mr President, Commissioner, thank you for taking up the Socialist Group in the European Parliament’s initiative and addressing this matter, as this issue is important to citizens.

I have my mobile phone here. I have heard from many young people that they have a lot of problems because, for one contract or another that they have completely unwittingly entered into – for ringtones for example – a sum of money is deducted each month for five, six, seven, eight months. No one goes to court for the sake of EUR 5, but if a million citizens experience the same thing and an undertaking unduly pockets EUR 5 million, that is a case of unfair competition in relation to those competitors within the European Union that behave correctly. For this reason, it is very important that we address this issue.

However, it is also important for the people, for the young people, for parents, who are confronted with this to be provided with legal instruments to truly strengthen their hand. At a time when Europe is growing together, when people are shopping on the Internet, it is important that we establish these as cross-border instruments to enable them to really be used appropriately. Therefore, in the opinion of my Group, it is precisely the group action provided for by such instruments that must clearly be examined in order to ascertain whether they can be used in the European Union. However, as you have also said, Commissioner, we need to design these instruments in such a way as to prevent the extremes seen in the US, for example, from creeping in, and instead tailor them to our own legal system. We must work on this and we wish to pursue this matter further in the coming months.

Commissioner, you know that we are on your side with regard to this matter. When it comes to enforcing the rights of citizens, we Social Democrats are always involved.