We hope you enjoy your visit and gain an insight into the work your EPP-ED MEP are doing to ensure the free movement of goods, services, persons and capital as well as to promote a higher level of consumer protection.
An effective, open Single Market must form the core of Europe's competitiveness, and our response to the pressures of globalisation.
Our Committee's goals are to promote policies that will make the Single Market deliver enhanced economic growth and more consumer choice, while encouraging innovation and enterprise.
The vision of informed and empowered consumers, exercising their market power and confident of their rights will be at the heart of our activities.

PRESS RELEASES

18/12/2008	Revised Toy Safety Directive: European Parliament adopts new European rules for safer toys. Marianne Thyssen MEP
18/12/2008	Directive jouets: une garantie de sécurité pour les enfants réalistes. Députés européens UMP
17/12/2008	Spielzeug in der Europäischen Union muss sicherer werden/ Safer Toys for the EU. Andreas Schwab MEP
16/12/2008	Toy Safety Directive: new European child safety rules. Marianne Thyssen MEP
16/12/2008	Le marché intérieur des produits de défense: à la fois une bonne politique économique et une bonne politique de défense. Jacques Toubon, MdPE

SESSION NEWS

Toy Safety The European Parliament adopted the revised Toy Safety Directive with a large majority during this month's plenary session. The new European rules for safer toys are a great success for the European Parliament as the European Commission and the European Council supported draftswoman Marianne Thyssen MEP (Belgium), Vice-Chairwoman of the EPP-ED Group, on all fundamental issues.

IMarianne Thyssen said: "We cannot compromise when it comes to the safety of toys. Therefore, we have worked together in a very constructive manner, without giving in on any of the crucial points, so as to reach a very high level of consumer protection. For my political group, consumer protection has always been high on the agenda; as these new rules concern children, the smallest and most vulnerable consumers, we have been all the more thorough."

CONSUMER RIGHTS DIRECTIVE: QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

On Wednesday 8th October, the Commission launched a new proposal for a Consumer Rights Directive, to simplify complex and different rules across Member States, reduce barriers that impede businesses from selling cross-border, increase consumer choice, and lower prices.

Doesn't Rome I already allow sufficient consumer protection in contract law? Rome I has not been adapted to address consumer law and therefore fails to deal with the specific nature surrounding consumer contracts...

Does the Commission proposal offer less protection to consumers? There are some concerns that some Member States' existing consumer protection measures go beyond the terms in the new Directive, and that such measures could be lowered as a result...

What would be the implications of excluding a mechanism such as the Internal Market Clause or the Mutual Recognition Clause outside the Directive? It would ultimately impact negatively on consumers if it were not addressed. The distinction between core and non-core aspects is not clear, it is difficult to ascertain and certainly not desirable given that this Directive needs to improve consumer protection...

POLICY

	Policy priorities
	Implementation of major internal market legislation
	Policy perspectives
	General Remarks