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

Hans-W. Micklitz
chambers of commerce and consumer organisations are enumerated 138 . This
will have to be elaborated on in more detail later on.
3. Standards Bodies and academic research groups
The Standards Bodies are in essence business organisations, as they serve the
needs of business to develop technical standards for the sake and benefit of
everybody. However, the New Approach has dramatically changed the outlook
of these bodies. The General Guidelines, concluded between the European
Commission, EFTA and CEN/CENELEC/ETSI established fruitful cooperation
which is based on mutual rights and obligations 139 . The European Commission
subsidises the work of these bodies and might in return give mandates to the
institutions to elaborate standards in areas where the Commission pursues
specific objectives, such as consumer safety. The Standards Bodies turn into
semi-public or semi private bodies which are no longer tied to industry alone,
but which cooperate with the European administration. The Postal Service
Directives 140 entrust CEN explicitly with drawing up appropriate technical
standards 141 . The Service Directive mentions standardisation though in a much
softer way. Member States are encouraged to promote European
standardisation in cooperation with the European Commission 142 .
Since the adoption of the Commission’s Communication on Contract Law 143 , a
new player has entered the scene of European regulators: academic study
groups. Pushed into action by the European Parliament, the European
Commission is striving for a Common Frame of Reference 144 which is to be
prepared by the so-called acquis group 145 and the study group 146 . The acquis
group has, at its name indicates, the task to circumscribe and analyse the
existing acquis communautaire in European contract law, thereby focusing on
European consumer law, the Rome convention, the Brussels
138 Article 26.
139 See for a deeper analysis, Joerges/Falke/Micklitz/Brüggemeier, Die Sicherheit von
Konsumgütern und die Entwicklung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, 1988.
140 OJ L 15, 21.1.1998, 14 and OJ L 176, 5.2.2002, 21.
141 Article 20 Directive 2002/39/EC on financial instruments.
142 Article 26 (5) of the Service Directive 2006/123/EC.
143 COM (2001) 398 final, 11.7.2001, OJ EC C 255, 13.9.2001, 1.
144 See von Bar, Juridica International 10, 2005, 17; Reich, Wisconsin International Law
Journal (24) 2006, 425.
145 www.acquis-group.org.
146 www.studygroup.com, see for a recent account of the work undertaken by the two groups,
Micklitz, GPR 2007, 2-15.
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