The Commission today presented an action plan designed to make it easier to settle individual disputes involving consumers in the EU. The action plan completes the proposal for a directive submitted on 24 January 1996, whose central objective is to safeguard the interests of consumers in legal disputes from a collective point of view. It aims firstly to create conditions in which disputes can be settled amicably, and thus proposes the introduction of a simplified European form like that used for car accident statement forms. Finally, the action plan provides for wide distribution of a "Guide to legal aid in the European Union", which is already available on the Internet.

The overall approach is derived from the Green Paper of 16 November 1993, in which the Commission proposed deliberations in a number of directions in order to allow a detailed debate about the problems of access to justice in consumer disputes in the internal market. Quite apart from technical and tax barriers, other specific obstacles which complicate the settlement of consumer disputes within the Community (protracted procedures, additional fees) may adversely affect the internal market.

In order to tackle this problem, the plan firstly aims to encourage out-of-court settlements of disputes by setting out an approach which should make it easier to put in place, on a voluntary basis, extrajudicial procedures for dealing with consumer complaints within the Community.

In order to reinforce confidence in these procedures among consumers, the plan proposes minimum criteria which, if adhered to, should in particular ensure that the body called on to deal with disputes is impartial, and that the procedure used is effective and open.

After consultation with the interested parties, this work schedule will be set out in a Commission Recommendation whose impact will be assessed after a three-year observation period.

Secondly, it is intended that a simplified European form be introduced; this will be available in all eleven Community languages in order to make dialogue between the parties concerned easier, and to improve access to the courts if such dialogue proves inconclusive.

Like other forms used throughout Europe, such as the car accident statement form or "Form E111" for medical services within the Community, the aim of a harmonised document in all eleven Community languages is to improve consumer access to an essential public service on the one hand, and to make it easier for the bodies dealing with disputes to carry out their task on the other.

The form will first of all be used in a three-year trial in a limited number of border regions in collaboration with already existing agencies. On the basis of the results achieved in this period, appropriate measures will then be taken to expand the experiment to cover the whole of the Community.

Thirdly, the Commission will publish a "Guide to legal aid in the European Union", which will help ensure that people are more aware of the systems of legal aid applying in theindividual Member States, which are of crucial importance for the most disadvantaged groups and all the more so when they are involved in intra-Community disputes. The Guide will be provided free of charge to the agencies providing information to consumers, and the on-line version is already available on the Internet.

Taken as a whole, these initiatives also respond to the need for collaboration between the Community institutions and the legal professions, at the service of the citizen.