Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2002-05-29-Speech-3-071"
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"en.20020529.6.3-071"2
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"Mr President, this draft regulation is very important. It has not, however, been subject to co-decision. One of the Convention’s priorities must be to subject all the important regulations to the co-decision procedure and we are counting on Mrs Berger to do this. The draft text aims to reduce the substantial price differences in the Union, but these would be much less substantial if we harmonised taxation. Regarding the other points, must we really reduce competition and step up the intensity of distribution? There are limits to consumerism. Vertical agreements enable us to guarantee consumer safety and contribute to enhancing the industry’s robustness. We must make these agreements more flexible in order to increase the independence of the local dealer whilst maintaining the chain of responsibility. The chief danger of the draft text is the withdrawal of the location clause. This would pave the way for large, specialised companies and large retailers. We have also witnessed the sacking of the CEO of Virgin; you forgot to mention him, Mrs Riis-Jørgensen. If these distributors entered the market, it would spell disaster for small- and medium-sized businesses and it could lead to considerable job losses, and a loss of proximity to the consumer, except in the most profitable territorial areas. We are particularly concerned that the consumer will be exposed to the risk of a break in the sales and after-sales service link if the distributor is able to award after-sales service contracts to authorised repairers which are not subject to a location clause.
Our committee calls for an assessment to be carried out in 2005 before any final decision is made regarding the freedom of establishment of distributors. This will provide an opportunity to examine the practices of reducing price differences that are compatible with maintaining the location clause. This is a reasonable compromise. Of course, other reforms could be envisaged at a later stage. The dialogue with the Commissioner was extremely positive overall: although we are not in agreement, we had an extremely useful discussion. And the work by our committee was also very thorough and I feel that it produced some worthwhile amendments. Parliament would be well advised to take on board most of these conclusions."@en1
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