Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2011-03-23-Speech-3-227-000"
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"en.20110323.21.3-227-000"2
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"Mr President, ladies and gentlemen, we did indeed experience some very tough negotiations, Mr Schwab, as opinions were very divided at the start of discussions. Likewise, it was not easy to decide on a reasonable course of action.
However, these negotiations did succeed in achieving significant improvements, even after the vote at committee level, which finally made it possible for my group to vote in favour of this compromise package tomorrow. After all the discussions we have held, you will be aware of how much this means.
We have indeed made a number of improvements. Accordingly, the fundamental principle followed in the directive is now, once again, minimum harmonisation – with the exception of the areas that are to be fully harmonised, which was an important concern for us. We excluded social services, healthcare services and games of chance from the scope of this directive because these are the areas that require special regulation. You cannot apply the same principles to them as to commercial services, commodities or retailing and so this was an important consideration. We have significantly strengthened the obligations to provide information to our citizens, the consumers. For this reason I would like to make it clear to the President-in-Office of the Council that the idea of dropping Chapter 2, in other words removing exactly the areas where this obligation to provide information is to apply, is something that the Group of the Progressive Alliance of Socialists and Democrats in the European Parliament will not tolerate.
We have included electronic products in the scope of the directive, something not envisaged in the Commission’s original proposal. However, distance selling via the Internet is one of the key areas that has been included. As we reached the home straight, we also succeeded in improving the provisions on door-to-door selling. These are positive improvements that have enabled us to lend our support.
I cannot deny that a few problems still exist, in particular the clauses relating to unfair contract terms in Chapter 5. We are very dissatisfied with these provisions and will either have to do some more work here or, if necessary, omit this section entirely. However, something that causes even more difficulty is the fact that financial services have been completely excluded from the obligations to provide information. I think we have a serious problem here. We will have to discuss this further, Commissioner, because financial services were included in your proposals and this should remain the case.
To summarise: we will vote in favour of the compromise package and will also vote to refer the directive back to committee, but this does not mean that we agree to adopt the directive at first reading."@en1
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