Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2001-10-03-Speech-3-344"
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"en.20011003.11.3-344"2
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"Mr President, Commissioner, Mr Huhne, I, too, would like to add my congratulations to those of the previous speaker, Mr Harbour. This is an excellent report and it was a pleasure to work with you. I can already say that tomorrow we shall be fully supporting the line taken by this report.
There are at present two developments running in parallel that are very important for this field. The Internet is growing in importance. Trade over the Internet is growing more and more. And on the other hand we are in the process of completing the internal market for financial services in Europe. Our target is the year 2005.
Financial services in particular, because they are not material, are pre-eminently suitable to be offered internationally on the Internet. I believe we will in the foreseeable future have a situation where customers buy insurance or banking services over the Internet not from a local bank but across the border in a neighbouring country and that the Internet is an excellent way of making comparisons in this field.
It is also important, however, that we win consumers over for this kind of commerce. It is consumer protection that I am addressing here; competition has already been discussed. But consumers will make
commerce in financial services a success only if they have confidence in it, if the contractual or non-contractual provisions are in place to safeguard their rights and to give them appropriate help if they have complaints in cross-border business. I support the Commission’s initiative here of setting up extra-judicial arbitration procedures such as FIN-NET. Only if consumers are convinced that any problems they have in future will be sorted out will they make use of the net in future.
The third thing was mentioned by the previous speaker: technical systems. Many people are still afraid and have misgivings about using the Internet. I still have myself. I am not going to put my credit card number on the Internet just like that. There are still reservations and inhibitions about that sort of thing. Online and offline commerce are moving closer and closer together and we therefore need to harmonise the legal provisions here, too. I can only back what the previous speaker has said, that we must abide firmly by the country-of-origin principle, that the Commission must stand firm. Parliament will also be making its position known tomorrow.
In smaller areas, too, however, like the abolition of national marketing and competition rules that stand in the way of the development of the Internet – fortunately, this was included in the report – we need to move forwards in order not to hinder development. I would like to say in conclusion that
commerce in this area will take a turn for the better, even if we may have gained a different impression from the stock markets in the last few months, but it will take off, it will continue to develop positively. We need to make Europe fit for global competition, ensuring that in Europe, too, financial services can be offered in this way. I therefore believe that this report shows the way and is a good step forwards, as is the Commission's support for it."@en1
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