Speaker: Andreas SCHWAB (Germany — Christlich Demokratische Union Deutschlands)
Political group: Group of the European People's Party (Christian Democrats)
Date: 2020-11-23
Debate: Towards a New Consumer Agenda beyond 2020 (debate)

  Andreas Schwab,  au nom du groupe PPE. – Monsieur le Président, Monsieur le Commissaire, merci beaucoup pour votre discours et pour la clarté avec laquelle vous avez donné les arguments en faveur d’une forte protection des consommateurs au niveau européen.
I’d like to add, Commissioner, that the level of protection of consumers in Europe is high, and we should not say something else, lest we create misunderstandings. The level of protection is very high, but that doesn’t mean that consumers such as ourselves haven’t had experiences where the protection was not right. Therefore, the EPP Group wants to work on adapting consumer protection in those areas where it is not yet right. 
Let me conclude, first, that it’s very often not the right level of protection in areas where we don’t have full harmonisation, so your task, from our point of view, is first and foremost to fight for full harmonisation, so that we can offer European consumers – wherever they live, wherever they buy, whatever they want to do – the unique and common protection that they merit.
Unfortunately, here, we face a lot of resistance, and I kindly remind you that we believe that the best tool and the best project where we have successfully implemented this is the Passenger Rights Directive, where every flight passenger in arrivals at the airport can see their rights and can implement them. Therefore, it has taken us by surprise and by deception, that it was not possible in this crisis to offer all citizens that were flying in the Corona crisis in the first half of the year the same level of reimbursement. Some have been given a voucher, others have been given their money back – and this, in the European Union, in the 21st century is not what consumers merit. We discussed that when we were meeting in the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection. That is one important element.
We need full harmonisation in consumer protection to make sure that we can move on to the 21st century all together in Europe.
The second point I want to point out as well, Commissioner: we believe that consumer protection can be improved in some points, but we don’t believe that the new concept of vulnerable consumers is a valid concept, because there is no general definition of vulnerability. You can become a consumer in vulnerability if you break your leg, but if you haven’t, you are not vulnerable, so we have to adapt this concept with a lot of calm and prudence so as not to create further bureaucracy.
One element where we have, in the past, had quite a difficult path with Parliament was the Consumer Credit Directive. If there is something to improve, the EPP is open and ready to work on it, but please, let’s make sure, Commissioner, that we don’t add further bureaucracy to a directive which is already quite difficult to apply in the interests of consumers, because sometimes they would more easily be getting a credit and that is something that we should not block.