Activites

• 2005/06/11 Final act published in Official Journal
  • Directive 2005/29
  • OJ L 149 11.06.2005, p. 0022-0039
• 2005/05/11 Final act signed
• 2005/05/11 End of procedure in Parliament
• #2653
• 2005/04/18 Council Meeting
• #2645
• 2005/03/07 Council Meeting
• 2005/02/24 Results of vote in Parliament
  • Results of vote in Parliament
  • T6-0048/2005 summary

    The European Parliament adopted the report by Mercedes BRESSO(PES, IT) modifying the Council's common position. (Please refer to the summary dated 02/02/2005).The report as adopted contains 19 amendments to the draft directive. To avoid going to conciliation, MEPs compromised on some of their initial proposals (68 in number) and withdrew others. The Council, which had already agreed to a majority of Parliament's 58 first reading amendments, made it clear that it would not accept some of the MEPs' resubmitted proposals. In particular, with regard to the 'common market' clause, the Council refused to reintroduce (as in the Commission's initial proposal and as favoured by certain MEPs) the 'country of origin' principle (under which the law of the Member State where the trader is established is applicable). This point serves to link this directive on unfair commercial practices to the services directive (now being debated by Parliament) and the text regulating sales promotions (currently blocked in Council over the 'country of origin' principle).

• 2005/02/23 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2005/02/07 Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading
  • A6-0027/2005
• 2005/02/02 Vote in committee, 2nd reading
• 2004/11/18 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 2nd reading
• #2616
• 2004/11/15 Council Meeting
  • 11630/2/2004 summary

    In general, the Council has followed the European Parliament Opinion and the Commission's position on such opinion. It has integrated in its common position 51 out of the 58 Amendments accepted by the Commission, either in whole or partly. It has also endorsed 4 amendments which the Commission had initially indicated it was unable to accept.The common position represents a balance of concerns and interests with the main results of:- maintaining the general prohibition of unfair commercial practices, with Annex I containing the list of those commercial practices which shall in all circumstances be regarded as unfair;- retaining the proposed average consumer benchmark but with the inclusion of explicit provisions for the protection of the vulnerable consumer;- deleting the country of origin clause originally proposed by the Commission;- maintaining the clause of free circulation of services or goods whereby free circulation cannot be restricted for reasons falling within the field approximated by this Directive;- temporarily allowing Member States to apply national provisions within the field approximated by this Directive which are more restrictive or prescriptive than this Directive and which implement directives containing minimum harmonization clauses;- clarifying the scope of the Directive notably in relation to certain professions, products or activities;- inserting a review clause.Of Parliament's 94 amendments, the Council accepted 7 without amendment, 48 in part or with drafting modifications and did not include 39 amendments in the common position.The Council also rejected 7 amendments accepted by the Commission.The other innovations introduced in the common position are:- the adjustment of several definitions and a new definition of "transactional decision" is inserted and the definitions of "average consumer" and of "Community level code" are deleted;- adjustments to the criteria for misleading actions;- clarification of the status and content of the Annexes.

• #2583
• 2004/05/17 Council Meeting
• 2004/04/20 Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
  • T5-0298/2004 summary

    The European Parliament adopted a resolution drafted by Fiorella GHILARDOTTI (PES, I) and made several amendments to the proposal: - Parliament sought to further define the scope of the Commission proposal on unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices. Whereas the Commission proposal stated that the directive would apply to unfair commercial practices before and after a commercial transaction in relation to any product, the Parliament amended the proposal to say that it shall apply "to consumers transactional decisions even where these decisions do not result in a contract between the consumer and a trader". - Turning to misleading commercial practices, Parliament voted in favour of including a number of new definitions of those, currently absent from the Commission proposal. Parliament's view of misleading commercial practices includes the use of artificially high reference prices as the basis to grant discounts thereby giving consumers the false impression of a price advantage; promoting a product similar to that made by a particular manufacturer in a way that implies the product was made by the same manufacturer; supplying goods or services to consumers who have not requested them, unless it is made clear that they are free; advertising products in such a way as to disguise the commercial intent of the communication. Similarly the House felt that "advertorials" (articles or features published in exchange for payment) should comply with the directive "if the marketers rather that the publishers control their content". Furthermore traders and publishers must make it clear that such features are in fact advertisements, for example by heading them "advertisement feature". - Parliament voted to amend the Commission proposal by defining the term "particular group of consumers" as a group of consumers who have distinct characteristics such as vulnerability due to age, disability, physical or mental conditions and similar, all of which may influence their assessment or their reaction capacities. - Finally Parliament adopted an amendment stating that the Commission must report regularly to the Parliament and the Council on the application of the directive in the Member States and should put forward, every five years, a proposal for a revised list of commercial practices which are in all circumstances considered unfair.�

• 2004/04/19 Debate in Parliament
  • Debate in Parliament
• 2004/03/17 Vote in committee, 1st reading/single reading
  • A5-0188/2004
• #X019
• 2003/11/10 Council Meeting
  • X019 summary

    The Council held a policy debate on a proposal for a Directive concerning unfair commercial practices in the Internal Market. On the basis of the indications given in the debate, work will continue on this proposal, pending the European Parliament first reading which is expected by April 2004. The following main key issues emerged from the Council's debate which was held on the basis of a questionnaire presented by the Presidency: - Delegations welcomed the principle of the Commission's proposal, provided that a higher level of consumer protection is ensured; - A number of delegations stressed the need to ensure consistency of the proposed Directive with existing parallel Community legislation, in particular with the Directive on misleading and comparative advertising; - Some delegations were in favour of extending the scope of this proposal to business-to-business practices while others considered that, at this stage, an extension to these practices which do not harm directly consumers would not be appropriate; - While some delegations considered the level of harmonisation was adequate, others expressed doubts about whether the provisions of the proposal are sufficient to protect the consumer. Several delegations also raised doubts about the wording of a number of definitions which, in their view, might create legal uncertainty and undermine the objective of full harmonisation that the Commission wants to achieve; - A majority of delegations recognised the interrelationship between this proposal and the proposed Regulation on sales promotions. However, several expressed a preference for continuing the work in parallel on both proposals, while stressing the importance of safeguarding the coherence of the two legislative proposals. The Commission stood by its proposal as presently formulated.�

• 2003/09/01 Committee referral announced in Parliament, 1st reading/single reading
• 2003/06/18 Legislative proposal published
  • COM(2003)0356 summary

    PURPOSE : to present a proposal for the Unfair Commercial practices directive and amending directives 84/450/EEC, 97/7/EC and 98/27/EC. CONTENT : the Commission's research has indicated that there are appreciable internal market barriers and distortions of competition which arise from unfair commercial practices as well as the barriers arising from their fragmented regulation across the Member States. The Green Paper on EU Consumer Protection first outlined the case for reform of EU consumer protection legislation to tackle barriers to cross-border provision of goods and services to consumers. It identified a framework directive containing a general duty in relation to unfair commercial practices as a possible basis for reform. The Commission has concluded that a framework directive setting out general principles supplemented by specific sectoral legislation was the most appropriate tool. This conclusion is subject to the directive being based on a full harmonisation approach and containing provisions for mutual recognition based on the country of origin It was found that: - 38% of businesses expected to increase their cross-border advertising and marketing budget as a result of harmonisation; - 46% of companies expect the proportion of their cross-border sales to increase with complete harmonisation of all regulations on advertising, commercial practices and other consumer protection regulations; - 10 million consumers would buy a lot more cross-border if they were equally confident about making purchases from traders in another EU country, and a further 70 million might buy a little more; - the introduction of a general principle of fair commercial practices in a framework directive will result in a decrease of costs, as will the combination of an adequate level of harmonisation and the application of the principles of mutual recognition and country of origin. The directive has the following key elements: - It defines the conditions that determine whether a commercial practice is unfair; it does not impose any positive obligations which a trader has to comply with to show he is trading fairly. - It contains an internal market clause which provides that traders have to comply only with the requirements of the country of origin and prevents other Member States from imposing additional requirements on those traders who do so (i.e. mutual recognition). - It fully harmonises EU requirements relating to unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices and provides an appropriately high level of consumer protection. This is needed to address the internal market barriers caused by divergent national provisions and to provide the necessary support to consumer confidence to make a mutual recognition approach workable. Member States will not be able to use the minimum clauses in other directives to impose additional requirements in the field co-ordinated by this Directive. - It contains a general prohibition. The general prohibition is the essential element of the Directive which achieves the harmonisation necessary to overcome the internal market barriers and ensure that a high, common level of protection is provided. It will do this by replacing the existing national generalclauses in relation to unfair commercial practices between business and consumers and establishing more precise criteria for determining what is unfair than any existing national general clause. If this general prohibition were not included, Member States would be able to continue to apply their divergent general clauses. - It establishes the concept of the "average consumer", rather than the vulnerable or atypical consumer as the benchmark consumer. - It elaborates two key types of unfair commercial practice; those which are 'misleading' and those which are 'aggressive'. This means that a practice which is either 'misleading' or 'aggressive' as under the corresponding provisions is automatically unfair; if the practice is neither 'misleading' nor 'aggressive' the general prohibition will determine whether it is unfair. - For clarity and simplicity, it incorporates the misleading advertising Directive's B2C provisions (i.e. provisions dealing with advertising reaching or directed at consumers) and limits the scope of the existing Directive to business-to-business advertising (i.e. provisions dealing with advertising reaching or directed at business) and comparative advertising which may harm a competitor (by denigration, for example) but where there is no consumer detriment. �

  • DG [{'url': 'http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/index_en.htm', 'title': 'Health and Consumers'}],

Documents

• Legislative proposal published: COM(2003)0356
• Debate in Council: X019
• Committee report tabled for plenary, 1st reading/single reading: A5-0188/2004
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 1st reading/single reading: T5-0298/2004
• Council position published: 11630/2/2004
• Committee recommendation tabled for plenary, 2nd reading: A6-0027/2005
• Debate in Parliament: Debate in Parliament
• Results of vote in Parliament: Results of vote in Parliament
• Decision by Parliament, 2nd reading: T6-0048/2005
• : Directive 2005/29
• : OJ L 149 11.06.2005, p. 0022-0039

History

(these mark the time of scraping, not the official date of the change)