Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-26-Speech-3-352"
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".
Mr President, first I wish to express my thanks to the shadow rapporteurs for their encouragement and excellent cooperation: to Mrs Wallis, who is here today, and especially to Mr Hatzidakis. He was so competent that he was immediately chosen to join my own country’s Cabinet. I am grateful and glad that both Mr Harbour and Mrs Kauppi are also here today.
The internal market, as we know, is based on the four freedoms, one of which, however, the cross-border movement of services, is not working very well. The Services Directive, which was decided on in this House a year ago, will improve the situation, when the Member States have to implement it in two years’ time, but that will probably not be enough either.
Services, of course, cannot be compared to products in all respects, but services will one day be more important than they are now. High-quality and cross-border services in particular are this continent’s future. The problem is that the acquis communautaire does not protect consumers who purchase services as well as consumers who purchase goods. European consumer confidence in cross-border consumption is low because the standard of services and level of protection varies from one Member State to the next.
The Union has Community legislation in given areas, but has no common rules for services. Consumers, like service providers, are not always able to say which Member State’s legal regime is applicable when there is a dispute. It is partly because of this that consumers are afraid to use foreign service providers.
In my view, the Union should agree common rules and obligations which should be binding on service providers. These would benefit not only consumers but also the service providers themselves. If the Commission should at any time look into the matter of the service providers’ obligations, it should not distinguish between private and public services. Both should equally come under the scope of application of directives on consumer protection.
In 1990 the Commission made a proposal on the obligations of cross-border service providers. It had to withdraw it, however, for lack of political will. There is, however, political will once again. The Commission should, if this report is adopted, submit, within 12 months, at least a work programme which reassesses the need for a horizontal instrument.
We need to settle on basic general rules enabling the consumer to obtain, if he or she so desires, relevant information on pricing, contract terms and remedies in the case of defective or delayed services.
The Commission should also take into account the impact of any initiative on operating conditions for small and medium-sized enterprises. Not all these matters were raised in the Green paper on consumer protection but they are in this report.
I hope I will receive the greatest possible support for this report."@en1
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