Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2005-01-10-Speech-1-093"
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"en.20050110.14.1-093"2
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".
Madam President, I am very grateful to the Commissioner for being here to help us with this question. Originally, it was to be put to the Council and the Commission together, because the proposal, which has passed its first reading in Parliament, has been blocked in the Council for far too long. The purpose of the question and debate was to get the Council to explain why it is blocked and what it is doing to move it forwards and get it back to Parliament to benefit the public. Unfortunately, the Conference of Presidents, in its wisdom, has readjusted this proposal for this debate and we are now putting the question to the Commission only. The Council is not here at all, but I suppose that half a debate is better than none!
This is a proposal on sales promotions. In each of the 25 Member States there are different national laws about what is permitted – loss leaders, three for two, giving away free samples. There is no single internal market in the rights of retailers who cross frontiers to operate with the same offers and commercial tools right across the Union. The original Commission proposal – a thoroughly good one – was to have a single market in sales promotion techniques.
This goes back originally to the 1992 Single Market proposal. As far as I know, this was first proposed in a Green Paper in 1996 – eight years ago. It passed its first reading in 2002 – two-and-a-half years ago – but, since then, we have been waiting for the Council to move.
There are obvious benefits if we can get this through. More competition and choice for the public, lower prices and more transparency. For retailers, there would be more flexibility across the whole single market, and another tool for marketing and doing business, creating wealth and generating jobs.
But so long as we do not have cross-border facilities here, costs are higher because retailers have to market different plans for each of the 25 Member States. The recent report on the Lisbon Strategy highlighted the internal market as one of the priorities, and this is part of the internal market.
There are concerns about the treatment of children and small businesses, and that would be part of the proposal that we are anxious to deal with.
The questions I must put to the Commissioner are twofold – the Council meets in secret and Parliament cannot be there, but at least the Commissioner gets to sit in the Council, so he can tell us what is going on. Firstly, how can we move this through the Council and get it moving again for the benefit of the citizens? Secondly, since the proposal was drawn up some years ago, the euro has flourished and e-commerce – trading via the Internet – has developed enormously, the committee would like to know whether the proposal as originally put forward by the Commission is still valid today or has been overtaken by events? Also, do the proposed directive on services and the proposed directive on unfair commercial practices interfere with the original proposal on sales promotions? We would like a new view on where the Sales Promotion Directive now stands. Does it need revision or do we just need to push the Council into action as fast as possible?"@en1
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"Newton Dunn (ALDE ),"1
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