The purpose of the proposed Directive is to coordinate actions for an injunction which can be brought against unlawful practices. To this end, the Directive sets minimal conditions for the mutual recognition of consumer associations and/or other competent bodies acting in the collective interest before the jurisdictions of Member States, in order to enforce existing rules of Community law.

In other words, whenever a practice which Community law declares to be unlawful has effects in Member State A but originates in Member State B, the Directive will allow competent bodies in Country A to take action in Country B, either directly or by asking their "equivalents" in Country B to do so.

The establishment of this mutual recognition is necessary in order to give these entities the possibility of effectively injuncting unlawful practices in crossborder situations. At present, and despite the existence of international conventions, a growing number of unscrupulous professionals exploit a certain legal vacuum: this disrupts the effectiveness of Community law. The approach which has been chosen is complementary to the principle of "home country control / control in the country of origin".

The collective interest to be taken in action is limited to certain fields for which substantive rules have already been set by other Community legislation, such as misleading advertising, consumer credit, unfair contract terms, door-to-door sales, package travel and timeshare.

The granting of this possibility of action to competent Member State bodies, and the modalities of the other procedural rules, will remain of purely national competence. Member States will be required to designate their qualified bodies and to communicate this information to the Commission, which will assure regular publication in the Official Journal in order to facilitate, on a practical level, their mutual recognition.

The proposed Directive represents therefore the first step to address the mass problems, viz. to target illegal behaviour which affects the smooth functioning of the Single Market. As regards the settlement of individual disputes, Commissioner Bonino intends to launch discussions, in the near future, about an action plan she intends to put forward, favouring the voluntary approach.