Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-03-29-Speech-3-194"
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"en.20000329.11.3-194"2
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"Mr President, thank you very much for allowing me to take the floor. I would like to begin by thanking the rapporteur, Mr MacCormick, for the report he has produced and the work he has done. May I also thank the other Members of this House for their comments and questions.
The proposals for a potential revision, referred to in the Green Paper, must serve as guiding principles for open discussion. In fact, Mr MacCormick pointed out in his intervention this evening that the Commission needs to deepen the debate. I undertake to do so on behalf of the Commission, but this must be in concert with Parliament of course, and with the other interested parties, because as an entity, the Commission is, of course, dependent on the views expressed by society and by this House.
Accordingly, the Commission would not wish to anticipate any future initiatives on the part of the Commission. However, the Commission would urge all interested parties to base their response on factual evidence. This point was also emphasised by Mr Harbour, when he said that only convincing reasons of a factual nature could be put forward as arguments for amending the directive. The Commission agrees wholeheartedly with Mr Harbour. Of course, we will always be prepared to reconsider our position in the light of arguments of a factual nature, but under no other circumstances. That also explains why the Commission would call again on the Members of this House not to confine themselves to certain positions purely for reasons of principle.
The Parliamentary committee with competence in this matter takes the same view as that expressed by myself a few moments ago, and by Mr Harbour, but the said committee believes that any revision of the 1985 directive should be based on incontrovertible fact. Before undertaking revisions, the Community legislator must subject the effects of existing legislation to careful scrutiny. A number of issues raised in the Green Paper, among others, will need to be addressed in the process. That is why in certain cases, people do not go along with attempts to galvanise the Commission into action, which is an opinion the Commission shares. It goes without saying that all the issues mentioned in the Green Paper will be gone through with a fine toothcomb in the report. So far, approximately one hundred contributions have been received from national and European consumer organisations, various sectors of the business community, government institutions in the Member States and in other European countries, as well as from organisations that specialise in product liability. This shows how important people think this subject is, and how justified Parliament is in devoting attention to this report this evening.
The analysis of the functioning of the directive, which will be undertaken on the basis of these contributions, is to be included in the report. The Commission does not intend at this stage to pass judgement on the debate as to whether or not it is necessary to revise the 1985 directive, but it will be guided by the aforementioned analysis in the course of this debate. If it turns out that it is indeed going to be necessary to undertake a revision, then naturally the Commission’s offices will prepare a draft proposal.
I therefore hope that the European Parliament can subscribe to this approach, and that it will adopt the motion for a resolution prepared by the competent Parliamentary committee, in its unamended form.
Mr President, rapporteur, the subject of product liability came up for discussion by the European Parliament around two years ago. At the time, the Commission put forward a proposal to the effect that the principle of risk liability for defective products, which is provided for in Directive 85/374, should also be applied to primary agricultural products and products of hunting. You may recall that during that debate in November 1998, the Commission announced that the report which was being drafted at the time on the functioning of the directive presented the best opportunity to consider revising the 1985 directive, and was the best means of doing so. The aforesaid report will be presented to Parliament and the Council at the end of this year. In addition, the Commission undertakes to initiate a wide-ranging discussion with all parties, based on a Green Paper, which is on the table for discussion in this sitting.
On 29 July last year, the Commission gave its blessing to the current Green Paper on liability for defective products. This Green Paper was, and still is, intended to elicit information from all interested parties, particularly the business community, consumers, insurance companies and government institutions, on two questions.
The first question is how the product liability directive of 1985 actually worked in practice. The second question is as follows: to what extent will this directive have to be amended? This document was intended, as I said, to stimulate reflection and debate. In an important section of the Green Paper, all interested parties are invited to make a firm case for their stance on the need for revision. This section addresses a wide range of subjects, amongst which are the points raised by the European Parliament in a debate two years ago, to wit, the burden of proof, development risks, compensation for brain injury suffered, franchise, the limitation period and financial ceilings, but also other issues such as the need for more transparency, supplier liability and recovery of damages.
These subjects are also mentioned by Mrs Gebhardt, or at least some of them are. She also talked about burden of proof, development risks and further harmonisation in this sphere, as well as further industrial usage. These two sets of subjects overlap. In any case, it is clear that these subjects will all need to be addressed in a report that the Commission intends to compile towards the end of this year."@en1
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