Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2004-04-19-Speech-1-072"

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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, consumer protection is an important objective and we need to prevent dishonest traders benefiting from the internal market in order to mislead citizens by offering them defective goods. Moreover, dishonest traders take advantage of the new technologies provided by the information society, thereby undermining consumer confidence in commerce. These problems do not only closely concern consumers, but also businesses and the economy as a whole. In order to protect consumers, therefore, we have to establish a body of clear, effective rules and also strengthen cooperation between national consumer protection authorities, by promoting information exchange and providing for the possibility for authorities approached by consumers to request the assistance of an authority from another country. It is precisely this second, important objective which the proposal for a regulation being discussed and voted on by Parliament this week seeks to secure. Current national systems are not capable of preventing and suppressing cross-border exploitation and existing informal networks face obstacles of a legal nature regarding, in particular, difficulties relating to the flow of information from one authority to another and even the lack of public consumer protection authorities in certain Member States. Moreover, the regulation lays down precisely the Member States’ obligation to designate a public consumer protection authority, which will be part of a European network. The authority of one Member State may request help from other members of the network in order to investigate possible infringements, to receive information and thereby to end exploitation by dishonest traders. The Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market has provided some further guarantees in the proposal for a regulation, in order to avoid possible abuse of power by the national authorities, to protect confidential information held by businesses which is not strictly necessary to the investigation and to ensure that the requests for cooperation are reasonably justified and do not pointlessly impede traders. The proposal for a regulation, moreover, provides for procedures which are at times a little cumbersome and onerous for consumers and the public administrations, and risk making the costs far higher than the loss or damage suffered by consumers. This is why we oppose certain provisions laid down by the Council and the Commission which would greatly complicate the system, and if we have to adopt the regulation at its reading before enlargement, we shall ensure that it is reviewed, on the basis of experience gained, five years following its entry into force."@en1

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