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

Services Standards
The recent Eurobarometer, published in October 2006, has shown that
consumers all over the European Community are very much concerned about
the enforceability of their rights outside their home country 231 . The Service
Directive neither mentions these concerns, nor refers to already established
Europe-wide dispute settlement mechanisms, such as the EEJ-net, nor
underlines the importance of the relevant Recommendations 98/257/EC and
2001/310/EC which lay down minimum requirements for out-of-court dispute
settlement procedures 232 .
The reason might be that the approach chosen in the Service Directive 233 is
extremely narrow. Contrary to Article 26, Article 27 addresses Member States
only, it does not define the role of the European Commission and it deals only
with in-house dispute settlement through the service provider himself and not
through dispute settlement bodies as established by professional bodies. These
service providers will use best efforts – the importance of which will be
explained later 234 . It is true the European competence on enforcement matters is
indeed shaky. However, the European Commission has quite successfully
combined the regulation of the substance of the matter, such as services, with
introducing appropriate enforcement mechanisms. It seems as if the intended
“high level of protection of the general interests, especially the consumer
protection”, as spelt out in recital 7, is no more than paying lip service to the
Treaty without taking measures to give shape to that policy.
gg) Impact on standardisation of services
The silence of the legislator does not preclude action of Standards Bodies. They
are invited to give shape to the complaint management of service providers.
Article 27 contains one notable consumer friendly message. Providers have to
make a telephone number available to the consumer, which might often be a
hotline or helpline. There is a strong link to the work ongoing in CEN BT TF 182
on Customer Contact Centres 235 . Here clear-cut rules are certainly needed to
protect the consumer against misuse. Outside and beyond, there is room for
advocating existing out-of-court dispute settlement mechanisms or for the
development of new and even better ones. Dispute settlement could therefore
become a prominent field of standardisation.
231 http://ec.europa.eu/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs252_en.pdf.
232 OJ L 115, 17.4.1998, 31, OJ L 109, 19.4.2001, 56; see Micklitz, § 32, in: Reich/Micklitz,
Europäisches Verbraucherrecht, 2003.
233 OJ L 376, 27.12.2006, 36.
234 See Chapter IV.
235 See Chapter IV, II, 3.
69