The consumer protection and public health requirements to be

taken into account in the completion of the internal market

The European Parliament,

- having regard to the motion for a resolution by Mr Collins and

others (B3-0850/90),

- having regard to the Commission's three-year Consumer Policy

Action Plan for 1990-92,

- having regard to the Council resolution of 9 November 1989 on

future priorities for relaunching consumer protection

policy,

- having regard to the Cecchini report on the economic

implications of the internal market,

- having regard to its resolution of 26 May 1989 on consumer

protection and the internal market,

- having regard to the report of the Committee on the

Environment, Public Health and Consumer Protection (A3-

0060/92),

A. having regard to the outcome of the Maastricht Summit in

December 1991 which takes account of the long-standing

demands of the European Parliament in that consumer

protection is now explicitly included in the Treaty as

a Community policy, thereby creating a separate, well-

defined Community competence in the field of consumer

protection legislation,

B. whereas the completion of the European internal market

by 1 January 1993 will have considerable implications

for the Community's consumers, who at present number

almost 340 million, a figure due to rise to 375 million

when the EC and EFTA unite to form the European Economic

Area (EEA),

C. whereas Article 100a of the EEC Treaty expressly

stipulates a 'high level of protection' for all EC legal

acts concerning health, safety, environmental protection

and consumer protection,

D. whereas consumer protection measures should not be

confined to individual measures of overall economic

policy,

E. whereas the growing range of duties falling within the

ambit of consumer protection - partly due to the

increase in international transactions - can only be met

if the Commission's consumer protection department is

better funded and staffed,

F. whereas, furthermore, better and closer coordination

both between the various Commission departments

responsible for consumer issues and with the responsible

national bodies is absolutely vital for the preparation

of European legislation and the application,

implementation and monitoring of Community law,

G. convinced that many of the shortcomings of European

consumer protection policy stem from the different ways

in which the Commission departments allocate

responsibility for it,

H. having regard to the Commission initiative to set up

three European agencies to supply information to

consumer organizations in border areas, in Lille for the

Franco-Belgian border area, in Luxembourg and (soon) in

Gronau for the German-Dutch border area,

I. whereas it is essential that consumers are provided with

comprehensive and comprehensible information if they are

to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the

Single Market (particularly cross-border opportunities)

and, through purposeful consumer action, become equal

partners in economic matters,

J. regretting that the European Parliament's idea to hold

a European Year of the Consumer was not taken up,

although it would have played an extremely important

part in informing consumers, since the Single Market

will have major implications for the consumer,

K. whereas Community law is still inadequate, above all in

the area of food law and particularly with regard to the

detailed provisions of the draft directive on additives,

food hygiene and inspections,

L. emphasizing, in particular, that adequate monitoring is

vital to ensure food safety and must be guaranteed

throughout the European Community,

M. whereas the only way of ensuring that checks are

comparable is if food inspectors (whether scientifically

or practically trained) are given similar training,

N. whereas adequate food labelling is also essential to

food safety and the handling of food by consumers, the

problem being not to confuse people by providing too

much data while giving sufficient information, in their

own language, on contents,

O. whereas no information, however comprehensive, can

assist consumers if they are unable to assert their

rights in borderline cases,

P. convinced that the implementation of the law on consumer

contracts, that is the consumers' access to the law, can

and must be fundamentally improved,

Q. whereas a reliable system of making international

payments is a vital prerequisite for the completion of

the internal market and whereas the current situation,

and notably the excessive delays in international money

transfers, is in need of urgent improvement,

R. whereas the development of new technologies, such as the

wide range of credit cards and electronic systems, is in

full swing and by no means ended,

S. emphasizing, in particular, that in this area, too,

information is of crucial importance in enabling the

consumer to make sensible use of these new systems,

T. whereas a vital part of this information is transparency

as regards the cost of each form of payment and the

intelligible presentation of the financial terms

governing the use of individual credit cards by

consumers and retailers,

U. whereas the consumer must be assured of equality of

treatment, regardless of the form of payment used,

V. whereas consumers will enjoy proper protection only if

all information is always available in their own

language,

I. Calls on the Commission

1. To base legislation on long-term consumer protection for

the entire Community not merely on a high level of

protection and safety, as hitherto, but on the highest

possible level;

2. To take greater account than hitherto of consumer

considerations in all relevant policy areas;

3. To set up, in place of the Commission's consumer

protection department, a better-funded and better-

staffed Directorate-General for Consumer Protection, to

ensure a clearly demarcated division of responsibility

between the various Commission departments that

currently deal with consumer protection issues and to

ensure better and closer coordination within the

Commission and with the responsible departments of the

Member States;

4. To launch immediately a comprehensive information

campaign on the opportunities and risks that the

internal market entails for consumers;

5. To draw up a study of the internal market's implications

for consumers, as a confidence-boosting measure, and to

provide an abbreviated version of it to all consumer

advisory centres in the Member States as background

material on the internal market;

6. To draw up a summary of existing Community law

(codification) and a survey of the state of

implementation of Community law in the Member States

(legislative coordination), to record it on a database

and make it available to consumers by publishing it in

all the official languages;

7. To give priority support to the development of

nationwide consumer advisory centres in all Member

States - particularly Ireland and the southern Member

States, where sufficient centres are not available - to

enable consumers to seek information as cheaply and as

close to home as possible, on 'cross-border shopping' in

particular;

8. After assessing the work of the three European agencies

for providing information to consumer organizations

close to borders, to support further initiatives of this

kind;

9. To support the development of law centres in all the

Member States, either as part of existing consumer

advisory centres or as centres in their own right, to

which consumers could turn for free or low-cost

information on Community consumer law and national

consumer laws, a facility that is particularly valuable

in the case of cross-border purchases or legal

proceedings abroad;

10. In the field of food legislation:

a) in respect of additives and residues in foodstuffs

aa) to present Community law still to be drafted

without exemptions for certain areas, products

or countries and to revise existing law

accordingly,

bb) to draft standards as far as possible on an

international scale, with Community

participation, and to ensure their observance

through mutual recognition, in order, for

example, to press for high consumer standards

both under the GATT rules and as part of

worldwide trading commitments,

cc) to draft all European legislation on the basis

of scientific investigations and criteria,

dd) to draft the awaited Community legislation on

additives in accordance with the principle

that additives should be employed as little as

possible, as repeatedly advocated by the

European Parliament, and on the basis of

technological need, taking the lists already

drawn up by various industries as their point

of departure,

ee) to introduce standard authorization procedures

for plant protection agents and pesticides at

European level, to enable preparations yet to

be authorized that are better from the point

of view of residues to be marketed,

ff) to publish criteria for the assessment of

additives in close collaboration with national

experts and to publish the findings,

gg) to improve information on additives by means

of comprehensible labelling, in the consumer's

language, of the contents and volume of

additives used,

hh) to give consumers the right to seek damages

for proven harm caused by additives in

foodstuffs,

ii) to submit with the minimum of delay the rules

necessary to ensure effective monitoring of

food, including training requirements for food

inspectors,

b) in respect of food hygiene:

aa) to submit by the end of 1992 a general

directive setting out general requirements

with regard to standards of hygiene for all

foodstuffs,

bb) to assign responsibility for drafting this

directive to DG III and ensure close

collaboration with the other Directorates-

General involved (DG VI, DG XIII and the

consumer department),

cc) to compile data on hygiene standards and

requirements in the Member States,

c) in respect of food labelling:

aa) to revise the existing Community labelling

directive and ensure that:

- a list is drawn up of major additives

(over 3%),

- all other ingredients, including

flavourings, are indicated,

- where food (including additives) has been

irradiated, this is specially indicated,

- nutritional labelling is made compulsory,

- and, where genetic engineering has been

used in the production of food, this is

indicated,

bb) to draft new Community directives on the

labelling of perishable and unwrapped produce,

cc) to give ambiguous designations a clear

definition and guarantee protection for the

designation of national specialities (in the

form of an annex, for example, by defining the

term 'whole food'),

dd) to facilitate the provision of information by

prescribing a definite form of labelling, for

example:

- specifying that important information must

always be given on a particular part of

the label,

- prohibiting the concealment of

instructions and the practice common among

retailers of covering certain details such

as 'use by' date with price stickers,

- by designating certain contents with

symbols (for example, a sign indicating

that food has been irradiated),

ee) to review the use of abbreviations - specially

for chemicals and additives - in food

labelling and to ensure that the consumer is

given appropriate information, for example, by

means of large signs in shops,

ff) to improve information to consumers on how to

handle food, by conducting and supporting the

relevant education campaigns, which should

begin at school,

gg) to make it compulsory for all information

which must be provided obligatorily or which

is of use to the consumer to be given in the

consumer's language in accordance with EC

legislation in force, and where applicable,

national legislation, taking into account the

linguistic features of the area in which the

product is sold;

d) to work for the establishment of a European food

authority or food agency to carry out the functions

listed above;

11. With regard to consumer rights:

a) in respect of liability and guarantees

aa) to ensure the implementation of and compliance

with Directive No. 85/374/EEC on liability for

defective products and when the directive is

revised as planned in 1995, to reconsider the

deletion of the exemptions,

bb) in the forthcoming discussions on the proposal

for a directive on the liability of suppliers

of services, to consider whether it might be

more appropriate to take a more comprehensive

approach as a basis, introducing liability

without the implication of negligence, similar

to liability for defective products,

cc) to review the laws of the various Member

States on guarantee schemes and to propose

schemes that will ensure a minimum European

standard, but to retain contractual guarantees

that go further than this as a special form of

competition and not to regulate them in

European law,

dd) to draft a proposal for a directive of its own

to protect consumers against unfair terms in

contracts, in accordance with the amendments

submitted by the European Parliament,

ee) to consider the feasibility of introducing

throughout the Community model contracts for

particular industries, for example, after-

sales service,

ff) to consider setting up a fund for paying out

damages in exceptional cases if the persons

causing the damage cannot be identified or are

insolvent (for example, in the case of

adulterated cooking oil in Spain),

gg) to propose to trade and industry a voluntary

code of conduct entailing a commitment to

provide information on guarantees and repairs

and, particularly in the case of transfrontier

contracts, to explain clearly the relevant

possibilities,

b) as regards access to legal protection

aa) to support the setting-up in all the Member

States of special consumer advisory centres,

which could also provide information on

Community law and the law of the other Member

States,

bb) to urge the Member States to develop in

cooperation with trade and industry nationwide

networks of mediation centres, using existing

national institutions (such as ombudsmen and

mediation bodies), which could be brought in

to settle disputes before involving the

courts, without curtailing in any way the

consumer's right to turn the matter over to

the proper courts,

cc) to consider whether representative action at

Community level can be introduced for consumer

associations, to draft criteria for the mutual

recognition of national consumer organizations

and, in particular, to harmonize the national

requirements which consumer associations have

to satisfy in order to bring collective action

and submit proposals (for example, reciprocal

enforcement of court judgments delivered in

other countries) permitting the introduction

of collective action;

12. To continue work on the new technical possibilities (for

example credit cards and electronic payment systems) in

accordance with the Commission communication and submit

without delay proposals for any improvements needed, for

example with regard to consumer information;

II. Calls on the Commission and Council to make substantial

increases in the funds allocated to consumer protection in

the 1993 budget and in subsequent years, in accordance

with the proposals of the European Parliament;

III. Instructs its President to forward this resolution to the

Commission and the Council.