Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2000-09-20-Speech-3-155"
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"en.20000920.13.3-155"2
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"I would like to thank the rapporteur, Mrs Wallis, for her persistence. It has been a long and hard road.
The European Commission has made a proposal which would ensure that consumers would have the right to take action in their own national courts and legal disputes arising from cross-border e-commerce transactions.
Amendments from the Legal Affairs Committee before Parliament would take that right and make it subject to unreasonable conditions and I cannot support those amendments. The amendments shift the balance in the report towards traders and away from consumers. Consumers can agree – prior to the conclusion of the contract – that they cannot bring proceedings against the other party in the courts of the Member States where they are domiciled. The main problem with this approach is that it assumes that consumers first read the small print in such contracts and, even if they do, that they fully understand the implications of agreeing to forego the right to sue in their own courts and the differences in relation to costs incurred, legal systems, the choice of language used and so on.
It is unlikely that the average consumer understands or is aware and we cannot agree to their full legal rights being abrogated in this way. I agree with Mrs Wallis that Commissioner Byrne was right to say that he would not accept this, and I hope that Commissioner Vitorino feels the same way, because this would be a disastrous outcome.
The committee did, however, agree to take a coherent approach to the law relating to the internet. Under the proposal, key information contained in the court files in the Member States would be copied, using a standard form, to a centralised database for on-line access by interested parties. Such a system will also promote the convergence and coordination of the different national legal systems and enable parties to check on the status of trading partners and suppliers, especially in an age of on-line trading.
This European causebook is very much to be welcomed and I hope that we will be able to support this report."@en1
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