Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-09-03-Speech-2-301"
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"en.20020903.10.2-301"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, honourable Members, I too should like to start by extending my warmest thanks to the rapporteur of the Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market, Mr Beysen, and congratulating him on his report. It was thanks to our excellent working relationship that we were able to put what started out as a highly disputed Commission proposal on sales promotions to bed.
Advertising in the individual Member States and, more to the point, cross-border advertising in Europe, is a difficult and tricky business nowadays. One hardly dares launch an advertisement nowadays without checking with a lawyer first. There are all sorts of restrictions and bans on advertisers in the Member States. To bring you up to date on what is happening in Germany, which Mr Lehne also used as an example, the euro discount offered by a clothing chain at the beginning of the year was prohibited by the courts, early riser price discounts have been prohibited by the courts and classic customer loyalty schemes such as Air Miles have been banned under German law.
Consumers are treated like ignorant, uninformed children. We have to put a stop to this, which is why I and my honourable friends in our group welcome in principle the Commission proposal to help out here. With the amendments by the Committee on Legal Affairs, it will certainly do a great deal to help the cross-border marketing of goods and services in Europe.
The Committee on Legal Affairs has proposed important amendments to the scope of the regulation. A number of sensitive areas need to be exempted, especially national advertising bans for members of regulated professions such as lawyers and notaries, and bans on the advertising of pharmaceuticals. In addition, national rules on aggressive advertising practices or the exertion of psychological buying pressure need to stay in place. Seasonal and clearance sales are also exempted from the regulation, as are fixed-prices for books and, last but not least – and this has already been addressed – the thorny issue of below cost selling. We were right not to include this in the scope of the regulation."@en1
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