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

Hans-W. Micklitz
IPL rules
Time
sharing
Distance
selling/
unfair
terms
Transport
(air and
railway)
3. Impact on standardisation of services
Financial
services
(insurance
investment
payment)
financial
services 108
Network
services
for
custommers
(electricity
gas,
telecomm
unication,
postal
services)
Other
services
in the
Internal
Market
(such as
contracts
with
liberal
professsions
and
craftsmen
)
accountant
s 109
So far the European legislator has chosen a twofold horizontal approach, (1) the
legislator harmonises specific means of communication (distance selling, e-
commerce) or specific types of contract terms across all sorts of services, (2)
the legislator defines rules on the applicable law be they harmonised (time
sharing, distance selling, unfair terms, transport, financial services, network
services or not (those coming under the Service Directive). Standardisation
plays a differing role according to the approach chosen. There is an easy
formula to recall: the more legal rules there are, i.e. the denser the net of legal
rules, the less important is standardisation – and vice versa. That is why
standardisation plays a prominent role where consumer protection rules are
less developed, such as in the area of network contracts or more or less
missing, as under the Service Directive.
III.
Choice of instruments in public/private law
EC regulation in the field of services is first and foremost realised by using legal
measures as appropriate means to complete the Internal Market, thereby
guaranteeing a high level of consumer protection – at least this is the officially
worded objective. However, it will have to be shown that the EC legislator is
more and more shifting away from traditional legal measures towards less
traditional ones, meaning those that do not belong to the classical set of legal
instruments being developed since the Treaty of Rome entered into force. The
108 Article 1 e) for non-contractual obligations arising from relationships between settlers,
trustees and beneficiaries of a trust created voluntarily and evidenced in writing.
109 Article 1 d) liability of partners, management bodies and persons responsible for carrying
out the statutory audits of accounting documents of an association, a company or firm or
other body corporate or incorporate, provided they are subject to specific rules of company
law or other specific provisions applicable to such persons or bodies.
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