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The Commission released the results of the consultation on the Green Paper for the Review of the Consumer Acquis. The Health and Consumer Protection Directorate General has issued a staff working document which summaries the outcome of the consultation.
A majority of respondents call for a "horizontal" (cross-sector) framework directive on consumer contractual rights, applicable both to domestic and cross-border transactions. This would be based on full harmonization targeting the issues that may raise potential barriers to trade for business and/or deterring consumers from buying cross-border.
The claim is that an internal market justification would be key for any legislative follow-up. In addition, this legislative tool should be complemented with a "vertical" (sector-by-sector) revision of the existing sector-specific Directives such as, for instance, the Timeshare and Package Travel Directives.
A second important result highlighted in the responses is the strong support for a revamping of the consumer acquis to make it more consistent and coherent, with the introduction of common definitions of consumers/professionals and delivery, rules of withdrawal rights and the insertion at EU level of a list of unfair contract terms (a black list with terms that are banned completely) as well as a second list of terms (terms presumed to be unfair).
The Commission will hold a full-day stakeholder conference on the review of the consumer acquis on