Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-01-20-Speech-4-195"
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"en.20000120.12.4-195"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, the luxury of time allows me to try to teach by example: Once upon a time, before the advent of the Treaty of Amsterdam, there was a Council which was debating an amendment of the Brussels and Lugano Convention: not for them the mysteries of the technical questions: it was a judicial problem. In other words, before which judge does one have to raise one’s concerns in the event of a transnational dispute. The Council, unanimously and within the framework of intergovernmental cooperation, that is to say, with very little sense of Community, very close to international public law, had arrived at an agreement in principle. But, lo and behold, the Treaty of Amsterdam entered into force and, in accordance with Article 65, it became necessary to communitise that amendment of the Brussels and Lugano Treaty and to turn that new convention into a Community instrument: a regulation.
In reality, communitisation means having respect for the internal market. This is important because, at the moment, completing the internal market means dealing with that border country which surrounds the regulations already in force and which, because they are rooted in procedural law and, of course, in many areas of international private law, lack clear definition. Therefore, if we lose the principles which guide the internal market, we are indirectly emptying it of its substance and heading for extreme danger.
And to this we can add another danger. In this age of digital revolution, we may tend to say, ‘We are global. The internal market has become too small. Let us regulate on a world scale. What is the internal market for? Let us go beyond the internal market’. Let us remember that European integration has been built on the internal market and that, furthermore, we are obliged by a Treaty to respect the principles which sustain and shape this situation.
“What about the consumers?”, you may ask. Well, in the example I gave, it appears that the intention is to protect consumers by offering them the opportunity to seek justice with the judge next door, their local judge. Will this protect them? I am afraid not. The evidence lies in the fact that consumers do not consider filing claims when they buy a small item, when they buy something from the local shop. Why? Because it is very expensive and long-winded. That is to say, if we want to protect consumers, we need to adopt measures, for example, the two measures presented by the Commission, the small claims procedure or the extrajudicial settlement of consumer disputes. This protects consumers: quick, cheap and effective procedures.
Furthermore, Mr President, protecting consumers also means treating them as adults, not thinking of them as being incapable of making a choice. I believe that, at the moment, one of the great challenges facing Europe in this digital revolution is to change the culture and principles of consumer protection. We have to protect consumers, but protect them in deed, rather than in word, and we have to accept a culture of risk, a calculated risk for the consumer. In other words, they must be able to make fully-informed choices.
I will end, Mr President. Europe must defend its values, but Europe has another great challenge; the balance between public legislation and self regulation. In order to defend consumers, we need a solid and protective framework of public legislation, but we also need to create an area where we can establish systems stemming from civil society which are more in accordance with our times than those which stem from the public institutions.
The other day, at the Madrid Summit, somebody said to me, “Mrs Palacio, on the Internet, one year becomes two months. A directive which takes you four years is too slow”. Let us be quicker, let us maintain our values but, of course, let us remember that our internal market must be a priority.
Then the Commission entered the scene and, very promptly, and in order to take initial advantage of the new Treaty of Amsterdam, decided that the communitisation of an instrument was simply a case of changing its title: instead of calling it a convention, you call it a regulation. And that is that.
Thus, the Commission, with no prior consultation, with no consultation amongst the various Directorates-General, presented a draft regulation on these judicial questions.
Today, in this Parliament, a report is being presented – still simply an opinion, since in this field Parliament still only has limited powers – drawn up by Mrs Diana Wallis, who I hope will speak on the matter.
From this – and my story ends here – we must draw some conclusions:
Firstly, there is a lack of coordination in the Council, because the Council does not mean the Council. It means the Council in its “Justice” form. And I will go further; it takes the form of experts, of professors of international private law, who are the people who have been negotiating the international treaties which, at the end of the day, deal with this specific question. There had been no consultation with the Internal Market Council or the General Affairs Council.
Also, however, and this is more important for the future, there has been a lack of coordination on the part of the Commission. It is true that it was experiencing very difficult times – it had resigned – but there was a lack of coordination in the end because the hearing on this issue took place after the publication of the proposed regulation, in violation of the most basic principles of efficiency and also respect for the citizens and this House, as well as other issues.
Furthermore, I believe that this example illustrates the difficult and demanding situation, or challenge – as you wish, Mr President – which we are facing: internal market principles, principles of international private law. That is to say, does the communitisation of an instrument, which will have to happen often, simply mean saying regulation instead of convention? The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market believes that this cannot be the case and I hope that Parliament will take the same view.
The communitisation of an instrument, first and foremost, means the screening of each of the regulatory proposals with respect to the founding principles of the internal market, in particular, the principle of mutual recognition and the principle of control in the State where it originated."@en1
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