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

Services Standards
against technical standards, if the European Commission has published
standards in the Official Journal despite solid arguments that they do not
meet consumer requirements 269 .
ANEC has reiterated the critique and introduced the formula of balanced
representation in consumer relevant working committees 270 . There is not much
hope that the European Commission in its official version will go beyond the
working documents. However, the problem remains that the GSPD provides for
a safety net to consumers’ products only. If the European Commission intends
to leave safety issues in the hands of private Standards Bodies – and this
seems to be the intention of the two documents – without setting a binding legal
framework, not even within a revised New Approach that puts more emphasis
on what could and should be meant by “essential requirements”, the European
Commission might run into serious problems. The protection of health and
safety of consumers belongs to the core of statutory tasks. The European
Commission has no power and no legitimacy to delegate safety matters away
from the Member States to private organisations 271 .
a) Impact on standardisation of services
The revised New Approach suffers from two major deficiencies: the first is the
missing link between standardisation and both existing and pending consumer
safety legislation; the second is the positioning of consumer organisations in
standardisation. It seems as if ANEC will have to struggle within the existing
regulatory framework. The European Commission seems in no way prepared to
upgrade the status of consumer organisations, neither in relation to consumer
safety nor in relation to technical standardisation.
III. Stocktaking – the existing and envisaged standards on consumer
services
Stocktaking aims at getting a full overview of the relevant initiatives undertaken
at the national and European level, be it via Standards Bodies or via public
agencies. The idea is to classify and to enlist the relevant activities which then
serve as a starting point for the analysis of its content under the best practice
formula.
269 See the list of published European standards, OJ C 100, 24.4.2004, 20 and ANEC’s critical
comments ANEC2005/CHILD/077, November 2005.
270 ANEC-GA-2006-G-036, http://www.anec.org/attachments/ANEC-GA-2006-G-004.pdf.
271 See already under Chapter III 3. a). The issue cannot be fully developed here.
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