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

Services Standards
Bodies have a word to say even in the highly legalistic area of liability rules on
the safety of services.
e) Consumer contracts on services
The Directive does not touch upon consumer contracts on services, outside
those which are subject to specific harmonisation measures, i.e. package tours
and time sharing and those which are exempted from the Directive, i.e. financial
services, health care, public goods. In this respect the national law on contract
for services remains unaffected, at least through the Directive on Service. It is
just another question to what extent the vertical EC regulations affect the
appropriate contract law. Outside and beyond the harmonised consumer
contracts for services and the services exempted from the scope of application
of the Service Directive, the applicable law in cross border service contracts is
to be defined by the Rome Convention which contains specific rules on the
protection of the consumer 228 .
ee) Impact on standardisation of services
As the Directive does not deal with the harmonisation on consumer contract
law, there is ample room for Standards Bodies to fill that gap. Contract related
standards as elaborated by European Standards Bodies bear elements of
standard contract terms, however, they benefit from a higher legitimacy.
f) Ensuring the quality of services through standardisation
Of utmost importance in the context of the study is Article 26 which under the
heading of “quality of services” sets ground rules for standardising all those
services which come under the scope of application. In essence it grants a
mandate to the European Commission to advocate the development of
voluntary standards to enhance the quality of services. This article, which reads
as follows, merits closer inspection:
(1) Member States shall, in cooperation with the Commission, take
accompanying measures to encourage providers to take action on a
voluntary basis in order to ensure the quality of service provision, in particular
through use of one of the following methods:
(a) certification or assessment of their activities by independent or
accredited bodies;
228 See Chapter II, II, 2.
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