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

Hans-W. Micklitz
however, are not consumers in the narrow sense as defined under the
consumer law directives 63 , but passengers, a category which covers
businessmen as well as private end consumers. The air passenger regulation 64
which has been revised in 2004 serves DG TREN as a blueprint for shaping the
railroad passenger rights.
The true challenge in the field of transport is the relationship between EC rules
and international conventions. The regulatory framework is not set by the
European Community alone, but by international conventions as well.
Standards will have to take into account the large regulatory environment. The
Air Passengers Rights Regulation might serve as an example for the difficult
relationship between EC law and international conventions. The Air Passengers
Rights Regulation reaches beyond the Montreal Convention 65 which has led two
business organisations to challenge the competence of the European
Community to adopt conflicting European rules. The European Court of Justice,
however, confirmed the validity of the Regulation 66 . Otherwise the air transport
industry could have escaped EC law, being bound only to less stringent
international rules. It demonstrates that rule-making, be it through binding laws
or through non-binding technical standards, reaches far beyond the Internal
Market, at least with regard to specific sectors.
2. Financial services
Financial services might cover insurance contracts, investment contracts and
banking contracts. From a consumer point of view the focus lies on consumer
credit, mortgage credit, insurance and investment, with a side glance to the
payment services 67 . All of these initiatives do not address the consumer but the
insured, the investor and/or the creditor, although the categories are largely
overlapping. The EC initiatives have in common that the European Commission
intends to open up markets in order to create and enhance European-wide
competition between national suppliers. The insured, the investors and the
creditors, notwithstanding whether they are consumers are not, will benefit from
63 See e.g. Article 2 of Directive 85/577/EEC on doorstep selling, where the notion of
consumer was defined for the first time: For the purposes of this Directive: “consumer”
means a natural person who, in transactions covered by this Directive, is acting for
purposes which can be regarded as outside his trade or profession.
64 OJ L 46, 17.2.2004, 1.
65 Convention for the Unification of Certain Rules for International Carriage by Air Montreal,
28 May 1999, http://www.icao.int/icao/en/leb/mtl99.pdf.
66 Judgment 10.6.2006, C-344/04, International Air Transport Association, European Low
Fares Airline Association vs. Department for Transport, ECR 2006, I-403.
67 The Directive has been adopted on the 28.3.2007, however, the final version is not yet
available, see therefore COM (2005) 1.12.2005, 603 final.
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