Mr President, allow me to start by thanking Mrs Palacio Vallelersundi for the initiative on the oral question. What is at issue here? The subject can be summed up in the following catchwords: consumer protection and electronic commerce in a force field. Or, to put it another way: how can consumers in the European Union be efficiently protected without hampering the development of e-commerce? The discussion is focusing at present on the question of the principle to be used to determine the place of jurisdiction and, subsequently, the applicable law in the event of cross-border disputes in electronic commerce. Must a consumer enforce his rights before the court in the country in which the supplier of the goods or services is established or in the country in which he lives? Which law applies? I do not want to address the pros and cons of this question again today. We are all sufficiently familiar with them. The Commission held a hearing on this in November. I should just like to point out today that, in my view, the discussion of consumer protection on the one side and e-commerce business on the other has been too narrow and too short. It also contradicts the strategy formulated by the Commission itself in its communication on a strategy for the internal market. The Commission communication expressly states that balanced solutions are needed if the interests of consumers and the economy diverge and that electronic commerce in the European Union must be given a realistic chance to develop. However, a balanced solution can only be found in the force field between consumer protection and e-commerce business if a wide discussion is held, beyond the limited question of the right place of jurisdiction and the applicable law. The purpose of efficient consumer protection is surely to ensure that consumers can enforce their rights quickly, cheaply and without red tape. Does this in fact apply if the consumer can sue in his place of residence on the basis of the law of his land? In principle, a judgement in his country of residence gives the consumer stones, not bread, because he then has to enforce or execute the judgement in another Member State. That is generally a lengthy, arduous and cost-intensive process. If we are to have efficient consumer protection, alternatives to costly and slow court proceedings, irrespective of which court or under which law, must be evaluated. In my view the magic words are settlement of disputes out of court, if necessary in connection with further harmonisation. The Directorate-General has already dealt in detail with the subject of out-of-court settlement of disputes in connection with cross-border financial services and it held a hearing on the subject in October last year. I propose that we evaluate in detail the knowledge and ideas in both the Commission’s working paper on which the hearing was based and the communication on the results of the hearing expected in the middle of this year for the purposes of electronic commerce. The approach in the e-commerce directive is, in my view, the preferable political approach and should not therefore be contradicted by the regulation in the Brussels/Lugano Convention or in Rome II. I therefore propose that we proceed either by postponing any amendment to the Brussels/Lugano Convention until all the outstanding legal issues in this area have been regulated or that we amend the Brussels/Lugano Convention but maintain the status quo of the balance of interests between suppliers and consumers.

Political group: PPE-DE