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

Services Standards
information requirements beyond the level foreseen by the Directive. Strictly
speaking Article 22 even bars European Standards Bodies from developing
information requirements which go beyond the Article 22 requirements. The
voluntary character of European standards does not set aside the
consequences resulting from Article 22. Otherwise the objective, to lay down a
final set of requirements which can be taken from Article 22, would be
circumvented, for example if CEN is elaborating information standards which
reach beyond the level provided for in Article 22.
On the other hand, European standards might help to develop a common, i.e.
European framework for companies that have decided to settle on the territory
of the host country. As Member States are in principle free to impose additional
information requirements on companies that have settled, European Standards
Bodies could contribute to avoid deviating national standards. As a starting
point, European Standards Bodies could take the Article 22 requirements as a
yardstick and try to make them apply to companies that are settling in the
Member States.
European Standards Bodies as well as National Standards Bodies are well
advised to check information requirements in technical standards on services
against the content of Article 22, in order to avoid duplication and in order to
contribute to a common approach on cross border services and on services that
are provided by a company that has settled in the Member States.
d) Professional liability insurance and guarantees
Member States are free to require that providers whose services present a
direct and particular risk to health and safety of the recipient or a third person,
or the financial security of the recipient, subscribe to a professional insurance
appropriate to the nature and extent of the risk, or provide a guarantee or
similar which is equivalent or essentially comparable as regards its purpose
(Article 23 (1)). However, Member States are obliged to recognise equivalent
guarantees given by another Member State in which the provider is already
established (Article 23 (2)). The Commission may establish common criteria for
defining when equivalence is supposed to exist, subsequent to the comitology
procedure (Article 23 (4)).
It is here where the Commission’s overall policy from pre-market control through
public law to post-market control through private law, becomes evident 226 . The
non-mandatory professional liability standards will compensate the consumer
226 See Chapter I and II.
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