Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-153"
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"en.20000920.13.3-153"2
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"Mr President, we all know that the development of the Internet as a shopping channel can bring great benefits: new opportunities for small businesses, for Internet start-ups and opening up the single market to our consumers right across 15 Member States. It can lead to lower prices for them. It can lead to a range of choice and we all support that, but we also know from surveys by national consumer councils, particularly in my Member State, that consumers do not yet have sufficient trust and confidence in the new technology to shop on-line. I am pleased to see that businesses recognise that consumer confidence is critical to the growth of this small-business e-commerce network. They recognise it is a precondition for persuading the consumer to shop on-line and therefore our key objective has to be to encourage that trust and confidence which in turn will benefit business by broadening their customer and consumer market base.
I appeal, therefore, for some common sense in this debate. I know that no legislation is perfect. We are all struggling in the e-commerce world to get legislation that is right, to get the right balance between self-regulation and a regulatory framework which gives minimum guarantees. That is why I believe also that this two-year review clause is sensible. It will allow us to look at legislation, how it is impacting on SMEs and now it is impacting on consumers. The idea of setting up a case book and collecting evidence is an excellent idea. We now have to work to find practical and effective ways to resolve disputes. This cannot be at the expense of consumers.
It is regrettable that in committee this debate has declined in some ways to business versus industry. Both business and industry can gain from a common sense approach to this. We can only recognise the full potential of business-to-consumer e-commerce if sufficient trust and confidence is there. The way to persuade those consumers to take the plunge is to ensure that their rights are intact and this has to include, in my group’s view, the right to take action in their own national court.
There is a view that consumers are only engaging in buying CDs, books, low-value items, but of course we know that e-commerce is taking off in such way that soon they will be buying financial services, they will be buying cars. In my constituency they want to buy cheaper cars from France and the Netherlands. These are serious amounts of money and, as we encourage more consumers to go on-line, we really must give them the right to sue in their own courts so that we do not expect them – particularly poorer consumers – to go to courts abroad. In reality we know that regulating the e-commerce world in the interests of both business and consumers requires a more innovative approach. It needs a fundamental legal framework with innovative, non-legislative solutions and that is why I support Mrs Wallis’ proposals: looking at the potential of ADR systems, looking at trustmarks, supporting small businesses in voluntary codes of good conduct, and finding mutually satisfactory ways to solve disputes.
Internet service providers have a role to play in this. America Online, for example, runs its own merchant business programme where it guarantees to support the consumer in getting legal redress from any of the businesses that use them as a provider. The reality is that none of these systems, of course, are in place in Europe, nor are they even really developed. Even in the US, where only 8% of websites have trustmarks, there are still considerable problems gaining legal redress. ADRs, therefore, cannot be a replacement for legal remedy. The consumer cannot be bound to lose his right to go to court by contracts, as inserted in the report that is before us from the Legal Affairs Committee.
More work needs to be done in the area. We need to create trust but, until these new systems are in place, there is no reason why consumers should not enjoy the same rights on-line as they do offline.
I cannot deprive my constituents of their right to sue in their own courts. They are entitled to their own system of justice and we have to continue to support that.
We do not support jurisdiction clauses because my group also believes that these are in contravention of the unfair contract term legislation, by causing significant imbalance in the parties’ rights and obligations under contract to the detriment of the consumer. This we believe would create more legal uncertainty, more court cases, more money perhaps for lawyers, but that cannot be in the interests of business or consumers.
I am very pleased that in my country the CBI has backed Mrs Wallis’ approach. It is a sensible position in helping us to work with business and consumers that we can ensure that court action is only the last resort and we can find better ways to resolve disputes.
It is a matter of some regret to me that members of the Legal Affairs Committee seem to have forgotten that it is our committee which bears the responsibility for the legal protection of the consumer. It cannot, therefore, be right that we respond to the challenges of the new world of e-commerce by seeking to limit or constrain those rights. This will send a bad signal to consumers. It will not support e-business development and it will mean that we will not develop the e-commerce business-to-consumer sector."@en1
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