The European Parliament’s Internal Market Committee approved today new proposals for a European trust mark to encourage cross-border e-trading by building consumer trust.
The internet is the fastest growing retail channel, yet only one in three consumers would consider shopping online from another EU country. The own-initiative report on “completing the internal market for e-commerce” by Mr Arias Echeverria responds to the European Commission’s March 2010 working paper on barriers holding back consumers and businesses in digital trading.
New trust label and confidence building
Establishing a European trust mark to guarantee the reliability and quality of goods placed on the cross-border electronic market is one of the committee’s proposals to boost consumer confidence and protection and so unlock the growth potential of e-trading for Europe. The European trust mark scheme should be based on EU law, supervised by the Commission and backed up by standards control or enforcement mechanisms at the national level, say MEPs.
However, they believe that any European trust mark scheme must be subject to a thorough impact assessment and be implemented in cooperation with existing trust mark labels in Member States.
The Internal Market Committee further stresses the need to build user confidence in e-commerce through education and information campaigns and to develop on-line tools to enable consumers to improve their knowledge of their e-trading rights and obligations and enjoy the benefits of e-commerce in a digital society.
EU-wide broadband access by 2013
To make the EU more competitive, the calls for measures to maximise the number of internet users, and improve the quality, price and speed of the internet, in line with the EU 2020-strategy. The proposal further highlights the need to ensure that broadband access is available throughout the EU, including rural, remote or peripheral areas, by 2013.
Simplifying delivery and administrative rules
Online sales are often hindered by foreign traders refusing to accept orders from consumers living in another country. The committee proposal regrets that the Services Directive has still not been fully transposed into the laws of some Member States and calls on the Commission and Member States to implement well the Article 20(2) of the Services Directive so as to end discrimination of consumers on the grounds of electronic address or residence and to ensure that this non-discrimination rule is properly enforced by national authorities and courts.
The committee report further welcomes the Commission proposal for a Directive on Consumer Rights and calls for an appropriate degree of harmonisation of certain aspects of consumer contract law, where appropriate, and especially regarding the handling of certain types of warranty claims.
Next steps
Having been adopted unanimously by the Internal Market Committee today, the Arias Echeverrìa report is now scheduled for a plenary vote in September.
