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

• labels and quality marks,
Services Standards
• assessing the competence of the provider, the quality of the service,
• comparative trials or testing,
• voluntary European standards.
Strictly speaking, only Article 26 para 5 refers to standardisation. However, the
last paragraph is strongly interrelated with the preceding paragraphs. This
comes clear in the only recital addressing Article 26, which explains its overall
function:
(102) In order to increase transparency and to promote assessments on
comparable criteria with regard to the quality of the services offered and supplied
by the recipients, it is important that information on the meaning of quality labels
and other distinctive marks relating to these services can be easily accessible.
That obligation of transparency is particularly important in areas such as tourism,
especially in the hotel business, in which the use of a system of classification is
widespread. Moreover it is appropriate to examine the extent to which European
standardisation could facility the compatibility and quality of services. European
standards are drawn up by the European standards-setting bodies, the European
Committee for Standardisation (CEN), the European Committee for
Electrotechnical Standardisation (CENELEC) and the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI). Where appropriate the European
Commission may, in accordance with the procedure laid down in Directive
98/34/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 22 nd June 1998 230 laying
down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical
standards and regulations and of rules on Information society services, issue a
mandate for the drawing up of specific European standards.
The idea of the EC legislator is to use the available infrastructure on technical
standardisation, in order to give shape to Article 26. The work will go on as
before, within the existing interplay of European Commission,
CEN/CENELEC/ETSI and ANEC. Strictly speaking the work has already started
– long before the Directive began to make its way in the legislative procedure.
The EC initiative to draft a Service Directive and the first steps in the Standards
Bodies to elaborate service standards started more or less simultaneously.
ff)
Impact on standardisation of services
country reports, in Micklitz/Keßler, unter Mitarbeit von Mareen Basler/Holger
Beuchler/Romina Bonome-Dells, Kundenschutz auf den liberalisierten Märkten für
Telekommunikation, Energie und Verkehr 2006,
http://www.bmelv.de/cln_045/nn_760478/SharedDocs/downloads/02-
Verbraucherschutz/Telekommunikation/StudieKundenschutz.html__nnn=true.
230 OJ L 2004, 21.7.1998, 37. Directive as last amended by the 2003 Act of Accession.
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