mr president i would first of all like to warmly thank ms kuneva for all the work she has done on consumer issues since this is the last time in this parliament we shall have a chance to debate with her
commissioner i from my side and i think the whole committee have really appreciated your intensive engagement
i know it was perhaps somewhat disappointing for you that we felt we were not able to give this proposal a thorough review and get it to first reading before the end of this mandate
but i think history will show that we have done the right thing because the work that has been led very well by arlene mccarthy looking at the impact assessment questioning the issues has raised awareness in the proposal and has also got many more people engaged as you yourself indicated
it seems to me and here are the crucial points i want to make in the short time available this evening that one important thing that is missing from this proposal is the overall strategic framework that the commission wants to follow in the evolution of the consumer acquis
this proposal addresses goods but at the end of this year before we have this proposal in place we shall have the services directive in place and there are many issues for consumers around that
we know that you are also looking at issues such as digital products package travel and so on
i think we need to see what you intend to do with this goods package as part of a broader strategy for the direction of the consumer acquis
that is very important
it needs to be future-proofed it needs to be part of an overall process
that is one of the things that i would be slightly critical of in the approach that has been taken so far
i hope we will be able to move that forward
i was delighted you mentioned the house of lords because i was also going to reflect on that
we have assured them that their report will be able to have a material contribution on the outcome given the time we have available
we look forward in the end to an extremely good result for europe's consumers and the internal market
