Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2009-03-26-Speech-4-047"
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"en.20090326.3.4-047"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to start by saying that we, too, in principle welcome the European Commission’s proposal and this Green Paper.
As previous speakers have said, there is no doubt that there is a ‘mass’ phenomenon in which relatively small losses affect a large number of people. The individual losses are small, but taken together the overall amount is large. We need an instrument to deal with this problem. In my opinion, it is right to consider something like this.
Staying with the positives, I also very much welcome the fact that, in its Green Paper, the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection has also placed a definite emphasis on the issue of alternative dispute resolution mechanisms. That is very different to the White Paper from the Directorate General for Competition, which was also debated in this House yesterday and which has so far completely ignored the possibility of out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms. I think that the Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection has come further in its Green Paper than the members of the Directorate General for Competition.
However, I would like to make two things quite clear, which in my opinion should definitely be viewed as critical comments. In a few minutes at noon, Parliament will adopt my report on the White Paper from the Directorate General for Competition. With a huge majority in this House we will demand that the European Commission choose a horizontal approach in dealing with this issue.
We must not end up with sectoral instruments: one for the area of consumer protection, one of the area of antitrust law, another one for the capital market, perhaps another one for the environment, perhaps another one for social affairs, all contradicting each other, all encroaching on the legal systems of the Member States and leading ultimately to legal confusion that can no longer be managed by any practitioner. We have often seen such examples in the past. I am just thinking about the debate on the Professional Qualifications Directive, which we later also combined in a single instrument because this fragmentation was no longer manageable. The Commission should not make the same mistake again in this case. It should advocate a horizontal approach right from the outset. That is the clear position of Parliament, as will become apparent in a few minutes.
One last point: I very much welcome the fact that we have agreed that we do not want a claims industry based on the American model with a turnover of USD 240 billion a year from which ultimately only lawyers profit and the consumers get absolutely nothing. We want the genuine rule of law in Europe and we want to keep our traditional system and our understanding of the law."@en1
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