Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-09-06-Speech-4-031"
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"en.20070906.2.4-031"2
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"Madam President, I would like to make three points. The first one is a bit of a confession: I am a mega shopper. I love to shop on the internet; I love to shop at home and abroad. So, I could say that I have a vested interest in consumer protection.
We all know the feeling. When you shop, things do not always go well. You come home, and the suit does not look as good as it was supposed to. You buy something on the internet, and Amazon.com sends you the wrong books. You try to get in touch with someone in the shop but do not get an e-mail response. You go to the shop; the salesperson looks at you as if you were some kind of serial killer and you try to say, ‘Well, what do you think I am doing? I put my fingers into the electric socket or something? No, the machine does not work!’
So, you do not always get the best service in the world. This is what we are discussing today; trying to get it to work a little bit better. So we know the feeling of what it is like when things go wrong.
My second point is that very few people, not even Mrs Pleštinská’s visitors’ group, know that the European Union is the friend of the consumer.
I know it does not sound sexy, but the ‘sale of consumer goods and guarantees’
what is that all about? Well, it basically says that you get your money back or you can exchange your product within two years, if the contract that you made with the seller does not fulfil those criteria. I think that is nice. So I say ‘thank you’ to the EU for that.
The Distance Selling Directive does not sound very nice either but it basically means that if you buy something on the internet, say from Germany, and, when you get it and it does not look like what you wanted, you can send the product back within seven days, and the purchase is refunded.
I also think that we should be a little bit better at marketing consumer protection. I will just give you one example from here. I agree with the following sentence but I am doing the sort of mother-in-law test here. What do you think my mother-in-law would say if she read this from the report’s explanatory statement: ‘The horizontal instrument would be based on maximum harmonisation, while the sectoral tools would continue to be based on the principle of minimum harmonisation with the exception of the directives already adopted on the basis of maximum harmonisation, such as the directive on unfair commercial practices’? I agree
no problem. However, if we are trying to deal with consumer protection, let us have some consumer protection on the stuff that we write as well.
My third and final point is this: I think the report is good but I think we could go even further. I am all for maximum harmonisation, at the end of the day. The funny thing is that we
claim that we have the best consumer protection in the world. I tell Mr Harbour that Finland has better consumer protection than the UK. He tells me: no, that is not the case at all. So I think we really need to find some kind of balance, and that is why I like your idea, as rapporteur on mutual recognition, to try to have some mutual recognition on this as well.
Finally, I would like to congratulate Ms Patrie for a great report. I would like to congratulate the new, dynamic Commissioner for great work on the acquis. I think this is a good start, but we can go further."@en1
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