Services Standards: Defining the Core Consumer Elements ... - ANEC

Services Standards
I. Current practices in the already existing EC regulation of services
The already existing EC rules on services, that is, the sector-specific rules on
consumer contracts and services, transport, financial services, network services
and the Service Directive provide a fertile ground for giving shape to the notion
of “best practice”. The crucial problem in already adopted EC rules on services
results from the sheer number of European rules launched, issued and adopted
by the various regulators. It requires detective skills and stubbornness to dig all
the various rules out of the web. The success is worth the effort. The web
reveals more and more rules. In this respect the situation differs considerably
from the existing rules laid down in technical standards. The various European
regulations, directives, codes, recommendations, programmes etc. will now
have to be contrasted against the six parameters which reflect the core criteria
developed above.
1. Education and skills
In principle, the existing EC law on services, mainly in specific sectors, does not
contain rules on professional skills, on training and education. The regulatory
technique is shaped to open up markets in realising the freedom of
establishment and the freedom to provide services. This is done by harmonising
the requirements under which suppliers might settle in the host country or might
provide the service from the home country. If any, these harmonised
requirements are bound to the performance of specific activities on the market.
Therefore suppliers must meet certain minimum requirements. However, EC
law does not lay down rules on how the relevant service providers need to be
trained, or what sort of education they must have if they intend to widen their
activities beyond national borders.
That is why it is not at all surprising that the set of rules which have been
adopted to regulate certain services do not contain rules on professional skills.
This is true for Directives 2003/54/EC and 2003/55/EC on electricity and gas,
Directive 2004/39/EC on financial instruments and the Service Directive. The
situation is slightly different in banking services and for insurance companies.
However, all directives put more and more emphasis on the correct definition of
the different service providers acting on the market. These definitions, however,
are not bound to professional skills. They are merely technical, or maybe even
more accurately, functional, i.e. they are defined for the purpose of the role they
have to play in the market. They do not help in deriving professional skills.
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