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

Services Standards
CEN and ISO standards on qualification of professions, in order to get to know
possible ways and means for a more coherent approach 236 .
b) Public law means – pre- and post market control
The French Act on consumer safety 237 provided a blue print for the development
of Directive 92/59/EEC on product safety 238 . The French Act covers products
and services. Safety on services was high on the agenda when the GPSD had
been under revision. Article 20 of the GPSD called upon the European
Commission to identify the needs, possibilities and priorities for Community
action on the safety of services and to submit to the European Parliament and
the Council a report, accompanied by proposals on the subject as appropriate.
The result was the Commission’s report adopted in June 2003 on the safety of
services to consumers 239 . The report highlighted gaps in the availability of data
on service safety, suggested improving the knowledge base, but did not call for
regulatory action, i.e. for the extension of Directive 2001/95/EC to safety of
services. The report led to Council Resolution 2003/C 299/01, which was
adopted on the 1 st December 2003 240 . The Council Resolution confirmed the
need to improve the knowledge base on safety of services. However, it contains
two remarkable references which deserve attention:
13. The Council of the European Union calls upon the Commission to
13.4. reflect on how European standards could contribute to a common high level
of safety for services,
13.5. examine on the basis of the results of the activities mentioned above
(improving the knowledge base and considering standardisation; H.-W.M.) the
need for concrete Community initiatives and activities in this field, with might
include inter alia the development of a legislative framework with particular
attention to the identified priority areas (see Para 7. tourism, sports and leisure).
The message is not entirely clear. But it is evident that the European Council
considers standardisation as a possible appropriate means to deal with matters
of safety. This comes even clearer in No. 11 of the same resolution. The
European Council considers that European standards on the safety of certain
236 The work is still in progress.
237 Article L 221 de la Loi n° 93-949 du 26 Juillet 1993 relative au Code de la consommation,
see http://www.securiteconso.org/article168.html.
238 Micklitz, Produktsicherheitsrecht in Frankreich, in: Joerges/Falke/Micklitz/Brüggemeier, Die
Sicherheit von Konsumgütern und die Entwicklung der Europäischen Gemeinschaft, 1988,
pp. 62 et seq.
239 COM (2003) 313 final, 6.6.2003,
http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_safe/serv_safe/reports/safety_serv_rep_en.pdf.
240 OJ C 299, 10.12.2003, 1.
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