Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2007-11-29-Speech-4-047"
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"en.20071129.5.4-047"2
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"Mr President, Mr President-in-Office, Commissioner, ladies and gentlemen, today we are about to vote on a second private international law instrument, the future regulation on the law applicable to contractual obligations, which is that rare thing in Community law: a document on a purely legal issue.
The Council President has assured us that if the amendments in the first group on the voting list are adopted, we will have agreement at first reading. That would be an outstanding and unexpected success for Parliament and the Presidency, and as the rapporteur from a new Member State, Romania, I am delighted to have played my small part. As I reach the end of my term of office as a Romanian MEP, I have to say that I am also very proud.
Despite its technical nature, however, this regulation is hugely relevant for Europe’s citizens. Contractual law lies at the heart of all economic and social life, and in the Single Market contracts increasingly tend to be between actors resident in different Member States. This is why this instrument, which lays down uniform rules on the law applicable, is so important. The solutions ultimately adopted in the amendments we have put before you for the vote are the result of cordial, ambitious and innovative cooperation with the shadow rapporteurs Mr Gauzès, Mrs Wallis and Mrs Frassoni, and with the Portuguese Presidency and the political group coordinators in the Committee on Legal Affairs, Mr Medina Ortega and Mr Lehne. I also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Mrs Maria Berger, who preceded me as rapporteur.
At the beginning the problems seemed insurmountable, particularly for an MEP from one of the newest Member States. I must point out that in seeking to replace the Rome Convention on the law applicable to contractual obligations, the European Commission claimed, perhaps rather naively, to be trying to communitise an existing instrument, whereas it was actually making radical changes. This led to widespread criticism that the Commission had failed in its duty to carry out an impact assessment.
Before I look at Article 5, which was the biggest problem we had to solve, I will briefly describe the main points we have achieved. The crux of this regulation lies not in Article 5, but in Article 3, which sets out the basic principle that the parties are independent, and Article 4, which contains the rules on the law applicable in cases where the parties have not chosen which should apply. The Council has followed the approach adopted by the Legal Affairs Committee here. It has to be said that Parliament and the Council took the lead in this codecision procedure by extending the scope of the future regulation to include insurance and carriage of goods contracts and by clarifying the rules on overriding mandatory provisions and mandatory rules.
Returning now to the contentious question of Article 5, it has to be said that Parliament won an outright victory here, reflecting the close and friendly cooperation between the rapporteur and shadow rapporteurs. The problem was that the Commission proposal departed from the Rome Convention by saying that, apart from certain exceptions, it is the law of the consumer that should apply to contracts between consumers and professionals. The problem with this version of Article 5 proposed by the Commission was that traders, particularly electronic traders, would have had to draw up terms and conditions tailor-made for each EU Member State. This would have been impossible for small and medium-sized businesses, which do not have the same resources as the big multinationals, and the result would have been an enormous barrier for SMEs wanting to conduct e-commerce within the Single Market. The rapporteur is all too aware that SMEs are the driving-force behind Europe’s economy and create jobs and innovation. The smaller Member States were also worried that they would be excluded from the e-commerce market.
The solution adopted in the end was to return to a simplified version of Article 5 of the Rome Convention. The new Article 5 sets out the principle that the law of the consumer should apply, but allows the parties to choose the law applicable. In practice, given that most contracts between consumers and professionals are standard, take-it-or-leave-it contracts, this means that traders will make their law applicable. However, since Article 5 provides that the choice of law is subject to the mandatory rules of the consumer’s country of residence, it offers a solution that is very much in consumers’ favour. The new Article 5 that we are proposing therefore provides a win-win solution in which the consumer is guaranteed maximum protection and SMEs will be free to offer their goods and services on the internet on the basis of contracts governed by their own law.
Lastly, I must draw your attention to a short recital which provides that the Community may, in future, adopt standard terms and conditions for electronic contracts between consumers and professionals. The final major step forward is the inclusion of insurance contracts, which has been the subject of lengthy negotiations between the Member States – Commissioner Frattini referred to this – and the inclusion of contracts for the carriage of goods.
The last thing I absolutely have to mention is that the UK, which had initially decided not to be involved in the adoption of the regulation following its reservations about the Rome Convention, has now apparently decided to take part after all, in the light of the wording produced by the negotiations.
We therefore commend this text to the House. In our view it constitutes a very positive result for consumers and businesses, and is an eloquent demonstration of the highly effective contribution that Parliament can make in the codecision procedure, even on very tricky issues such as this."@en1
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