Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-06-09-Speech-4-035-000"
| Predicate | Value (sorted: default) |
|---|---|
| rdf:type | |
| dcterms:Date | |
| dcterms:Is Part Of | |
| dcterms:Language | |
| lpv:document identification number |
"en.20110609.4.4-035-000"2
|
| lpv:hasSubsequent | |
| lpv:speaker | |
| lpv:translated text |
"Madam President, honourable Members, the Commission shares the European Parliament’s concerns and misgivings and its critical analysis of this issue. The misleading practices of business directories are causing problems for numerous companies. Three years ago, we commissioned a survey and received thousands of complaints. We can only assume that this is just the tip of the iceberg, which means that the number of businesses that feel they have been misled could be many times greater.
Mrs Reding, the Commissioner responsible for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship, is currently collecting data in order to establish the scope of the problem. I want to emphasise the fact that practices of this kind are already banned under the terms of Directive 2006/114/EC concerning misleading and comparative advertising and of anti-fraud legislation in the various Member States. However, some of these fraudulent practices take place across national borders and are used in business transactions between different companies and, as things currently stand, it is difficult to prosecute the perpetrators.
In order to address and resolve this problem, Mrs Reding plans to issue a communication by the end of the year which will report on the status of the implementation of the existing directive concerning misleading and comparative advertising and on the current opportunities for revising it and which will provide an evaluation of the situation. She is considering improving the content and looking at the conclusions to be drawn from misleading practices. She is also focusing on how the cooperation between the national authorities on the prosecution of cross-border cases can be improved.
She also plans to propose that citizens and companies should be made more aware of the growing problem of misleading business directories and to highlight the need for more public relations activities in this area. The 2006 directive has been implemented by all the Member States. Nevertheless, the Commission has asked the Member States to inform us about the implementation and the measures they have taken and to submit a status report as soon as possible, before the planned communication is issued. This process was supported by a conference organised at the end of May by the Commission involving national authorities, interest groups and independent experts. The conference focused on the fraudulent practices of business directories and, in particular, cross-border activities.
During the debate, it became clear that better and more systematic cooperation between the authorities in the Member States is needed and this will be incorporated into Mrs Reding’s communication at the end of the year. I can assure you that we see this issue as being just as urgent as you do. This is why we want to take the next steps as quickly as possible. However, for formal reasons, we must ensure that those businesses which are affected are involved in an appropriate way and, therefore, we need the time to do this. On the basis of the results of the consultation process and after examining all the arguments, the Commission intends to take further corrective measures to prevent misleading and illegal cross-border practices. Thank you very much for your broad support on this matter."@en1
|
| lpv:videoURI |
Named graphs describing this resource:
The resource appears as object in 2 triples