Vivianne Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship spoke in Madrid on 15th of March 2010 on: "An ambitious Consumer Rights Directive: boosting consumers' protection and helping businesses".
The main message of her speech is that the European Commision seems to be ready to give up the idea of maximum harmonization and instead focus on the targeted harmonization. This means that the degree of harmonization would depend in each case on the benefit of consumers. That means that the maximum harmonization could still be an option but not for every transaction regulated in the directive, but only for those where it is seen as really needed, e.g. by transaction concluded online, where security for consumers and legal clarity for service providers and sellers are crucial. For direct transactions in which protection of the consumers is not needed to such a big extent, targeted solutions would be used.
The main message of her speech is that the European Commision seems to be ready to give up the idea of maximum harmonization and instead focus on the targeted harmonization. This means that the degree of harmonization would depend in each case on the benefit of consumers. That means that the maximum harmonization could still be an option but not for every transaction regulated in the directive, but only for those where it is seen as really needed, e.g. by transaction concluded online, where security for consumers and legal clarity for service providers and sellers are crucial. For direct transactions in which protection of the consumers is not needed to such a big extent, targeted solutions would be used.
Further comment may be found on the website of the European Parliament.