Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-03-13-Speech-2-217"
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"Mr President, I shall start with the group of questions concerning collective redress, beginning with that by Mrs Patrie. As I said, last week we launched a study on collective redress, and once we have received all the results, we will present them and discuss the outcome with Parliament.
On the last question about Microsoft: frankly, I do not think that I have enough information to speculate on this case.
Concerning the young generation, I could not agree more that this is one of the Commission’s main targets. I very much appreciate the approach taken by my colleague Commissioner Kyprianou on the health programme, and I think that it would be useful if we had the same approach on the consumer side targeting the young generation. We should really educate and teach the young generation of consumers – somebody called them ‘digital natives’!
However, there is no doubt that the collective interest of consumers, in a case such as the small-scale complaint that you mentioned, is very important for ensuring the fairness of the market and also for shaping the market behaviour of producers. We will therefore pursue our efforts in this area, which concerns precisely the first and third pillars of our consumer policy – to empower the consumer and to protect the consumer, not in a paternalistic way, but quite the opposite. This means that we will need more active citizens and more tools available for them.
With regard to Mr Stubb's question about priorities, the competitiveness commissioners will start to systematically review policy initiatives to ensure consumer outcomes are given greater weight. This concerns the information society, the digital world, energy liberalisation and trade instruments. The first initiatives are in our work programme. I believe that once this is done, if I may borrow from one of Mr Stubb's articles, we will be able to say that Europe is becoming more 'cool' and easier to understand for citizens.
As regards the question by Mrs Schaldemose on
rules, I do not think we can label the rules as minimalist or as maximalist. We need a certain amount of very well measured regulation, precisely implemented, and I do not believe that de minimis rules would always be helpful.
I shall now turn to the question by Mr Dimitrov. Allow me to switch into Bulgarian.
Г-н Димитров, Вие представихте това, което считат за правилно провайдърите на такъв тип услуги. Вие буквално прочетохте тяхното писмо, с което аз съм запозната отдавна. Но аз имам и друго писмо и това е от гледна точка на потребителските организации.
В събота, в София, аз ще участвам в една конференция, която е специално насочена към тези права онлайн. И се надявам, че тогава ще могат да се чуят и двете страни. В противен случай, от тук да коментираме чл. 56 на националното ни законодателство, не е може би най-доброто време за това. Но мога да Ви уверя, че цялото внимание ще бъде отдадено на това да има повече информация и да могат да се видят различните гледни точки.
Then, the impact assessment and cross-border problems – how the new approach could go in the right direction: I think this is exactly what the new approach is targeting, but, unfortunately, I do not have a recipe as to how we can avoid any trouble and make implementation go smoothly. This very much depends on the individual country. The only way I know is to communicate more, to explain more and to rely on the European Consumer Centres, on enforcement bodies in the Member States and on consumer organisations. That is why I believe that adding a strong consumer dimension to Member State governments’ policies and to non-governmental organisations is absolutely crucial for development.
Regarding tangible penalties: if there is an infringement I will not hesitate to start such a procedure, but first let us think how better to implement and to enforce, and then, if necessary, we can go further."@en1
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