EU: Green Paper Bolstered

As forecast in NOTICES 32 the Communication following up the European Commission’s Green Paper on Commercial Communications has been adopted by the Commission. The Commission has agreed an important series of measures to facilitate the cross-border provision of commercial communication services along the broad lines of the proposals contained in the Green Paper. This approach will be applied by the Commission to four key areas where it believes that commercial communication regulations at the national level diverge significantly, thus giving rise to single market barriers and also to a lack of effective consumer protection across internal EU borders. These four areas are the protection of minors, unfair competition, sponsorship, and misleading claims. The Commission’s policy document (COM(98)121) confirms that commercial communications should benefit from an appropriate EU framework because such services are not only increasingly offered across borders but also subject to regulations to protect a wide variety of public interest objectives. The Commission will thus implement the following steps:

• establish the application of a transparent assessment methodology; under this the Commission’s services will apply, where appropriate, a methodology to assess all possible effects of a particular measure and will consider whether it could be considered proportional
• a commercial communications’ expert group will be established with representatives from MS. The aim of this group will be to set transparent and efficient administrative co-operation between the Commission and MS, and to initiate dialogue with third parties.
• a commercial communications’ contact point for interested third parties will be established within DGXV of the Commission, together with an internet web site, to facilitate information flows and transparency.
• a commercial communications information database will be set up, concerning national and EU regulations and self-regulatory codes.
• the Commission will continue its general efforts to accelerate handling of complaints in this area. It will also try to reduce delays by using -where appropriate – the proportionality assessment method.
• via the web site and contact point the Commission will set up a representative group of academic experts in commercial communications; the aim of this will be to assist the Commission’s work and also that of the expert group.
• the Commission will promote the principles of this approach in international negotiations. the Commission will attempt to clarify issues in electronic commerce, by proposing clarification in areas where legal uncertainty currently exists.
• finally, the Commission proposes to keep the European Parliament fully informed on the application of this approach, including an evaluation of the work carried out and an update of the work programme.

The Communication was welcomed several organizations including the UK Advertising Association.