mr president it gives me great pleasure to be able to welcome on behalf of the group and as indeed the second shadow rapporteur for my group that has worked on it the agreement we have reached with council today
i also want to thank council for their cooperation
i want to place on record the indebtedness that we pay to mrs luisa rudi ubeda who was elected to the spanish parliament in the summer but who had actually done the bulk of the shadow work on this directive
in particular in relation to the point to the rapporteur from the committee on legal affairs i just want to emphasise that the special section on holiday clubs which i think is probably the biggest single advance we have in this directive in dealing with that particular type of product was very much due to the tenacity of mrs rudi ubeda in ensuring that we kept it on the table
council and commission in particular were rather reluctant but i am delighted that we have reached agreement on that because i think it is crucially important
my rapporteur toine manders who has also done an excellent job on this and to whom i pay tribute as well as the rest of the team that worked with him and mrs kuneva have covered a number of the other issues but i just want to highlight what i think are two other very important issues where we have sought significant improvement
the first one is on the question of advertising
if you look at the advertising clause it is now clearly spelt out that any promotional activity in relation to a timeshare or holiday club has to be clearly shown and designated in advertising as such
also the standardised information that we have asked to be available has to be available at all times at any sort of promotional event so there can be no question of people being misled by some attractive trip visit or offer
it has to be absolutely clear what it is they are talking about and that it should not be sold as an investment
secondly and here i address the council though unfortunately the minister is not here the member states encouragement of codes of conduct and out-of-court dispute resolution is absolutely crucial
overall this is a major advance in consumer protection
i fully commend it and i am sure that it will get the overwhelming support of the house today
