EU: Committee To Include Consumers

European Commission officials are reported to be in favour of accepting a key proposal of the European Parliament to include consumer and advertising industry representative’s on the ‘proportionality committee’, charged with assessing whether national restrictions on commercial communications constitute illegal barriers to trade. The original idea was to limit the committee’s composition to representatives of the member states, but the Commission appears to be anxious to be as accommodating as possible to the European Parliament (EP), after the EP’s endorsement of the ‘country of origin’ principle. The Commission’s decision nevertheless seems unlikely to be supported by the Council of Ministers.