Speech by Horst Reichenbach

Horst Reichenbach
Director General, DG XXIV, Consumer policy and Consumer Health Protection, European Commission

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am glad to be with you for this 2nd TACD Meeting. My colleagues have informed me of your discussions over these two days and I must say I am very impressed by the breadth of the subject matters that you have covered and the details into which you have gone.

I attended your first meeting in Washington last September. I remember the difficult birth of the TACD. But it seems to me that after the difficult start both sides see the benefits of working together. As we, in DG XXIV, have been keen to have the consumer voice heard alongside the already established TABD, I would like to thank you:

• The European Consumer Organisations
• The American Consumer Organisation and
• Consumer International

for taking up the opportunity and running with it.

I appreciate that sometimes and in particular on the US side (judging from my experience last September) this has required special efforts and the willingness to compromise in a noble sense. Hopefully, you are by now convinced that these efforts have been worthwhile and that the process of dialogue is beginning to yield major benefits.

Since we met in September, the Commission has adopted a three years action plan for Consumer Policy. A more powerful consumer voice is the first pillar of our own tasks and we have stressed in this context the international dimension and the important role the TACD plays in this. Our action plan has received very encouraging support from the other Institutions, the European Parliament and the Council, where all the Member States have appreciated the balanced and realistic nature of our ambitions.

And I am particularly glad that you have chosen two subject matters for this second dialogue which are of highest priority in our action plan: Food Safety and Electronic Commerce, indeed. You chose to set up three working groups on subjects where both the American and European administrations are active in their policy development. Clearly, the strengthening of the consumer voice and the results of these two days work are not the end of the process. Rather these results should now be an important input into the policy-making process. For this, it is important that the work of the TACD leads to a clear response from the European and US public authorities. I cannot promise you that the European Commission will share all your analyses or that it will approve all your recommendations. But I can promise you that DG XXIV will propagate and endorse them for its own policy input as far as possible. In addition we shall co-operate with our American colleagues in order for procedures to be put in place within the Transatlantic Economic Partnership that ensure a discussion by both administrations of your work and a response by us to you.

In terms of your working procedures, I would like to encourage you to come up with recommendations that are a practical support to your positions. I do not think that a loose form of co-operation would be enough, nor that a nice and pleasant meeting once every six months would be sufficient to make the consumers' voice heard on both side of the Atlantic.

This is why I think, and I repeat it, that the work that you have undertaken in terms of writing reports and making recommendations is a very positive move, that will indeed be extremely useful for all the stakeholders.

Allow me to comment now on some of your recommendations.

First of all the Precautionary Principle. I understand that the precautionary principle was discussed in both the food safety and the New Transatlantic Agenda groups. This is appropriate, as they are both important health and trade issues. I fully agree with your recommendation stating that the precautionary principle should apply in cases when the scientific evidence is insufficient to determine a level of protection. I also agree very much with the idea of the need to reflect upon who should bear the burden of proof to demonstrate that a product is safe.

We are aware of the danger that this principle might be used, in some cases, as an obstacle to trade. This is certainly not our intention, on the contrary, we are well aware of the benefits of free trade for consumers. Consequently, the Commission services are in the process of elaborating a Commission Communication on the subject. This Communication will circumscribe the use of this Principle in risk management and will elaborate guidelines to this effect. The Commission and the Member States supported the introduction of the precautionary principle and the development of guidelines on its application in the Codex meeting earlier this week and I am disappointed that from the US side there has not been the same support in the Codex.

You also express the wish for legislation for mandatory evaluation and authorisation of GMO foods as well as information of the consumer. In the EU, these concerns have already been taken into account to some extent. There is mandatory safety assessment of all GMOs, and it is even currently being improved by the revision of the directive on deliberate release.

The Commission has already recognised consumer concerns when we put in place a general labelling framework and now we are in the process of developing detailed implementing rules. The Commission is also discussing the framework for a non-GMO food production line, to which producers could adhere, on a voluntary basis, just like for organic farming.

Your recommendation on Fair trade raises a number of important and interesting concerns. It is different from the traditional way of looking at International Trade. We welcome the principles articulated and would be interested to see how you would envisage their implementation in more practical terms.

I welcome your recommendation on Inspections as I notice that it is in line with the Commission Green Paper on Food legislation, and the Commission Communication on Consumer health and Food Safety, both issued in 1997.

On Electronic Commerce you have tabled a number of resolutions and recommendations and will continue working on others. We are encouraged to see that in our discussions with our US counterparts we are already addressing many of the issues which are of concern to you. The OECD ministerial Conference in Ottawa has agreed to put in place, this year, consumer protection guidelines on electronic commerce. I am concerned about the slowness of the process and hope it can be accelerated having regard to your work. The Commission has just sent to FTC (Free Trade Commission) a paper outlining our own views on the matter which we would be happy to make available to you.

In some minutes, you will start debating - inter alia - of TACD procedures and process. These rules are, as I see it, particularly important for making sure that the Dialogue remains what it was intended to be: a dialogue between consumer representatives of both sides of the Atlantic, a natural complement to the other dialogues.

Let me say a word about the future of the Dialogue. The European Commission is dedicated to continue to support financially the Dialogue. However, our rules are such that this can only be done if the US side comes up with matching funds.

As regards the future agenda of the Dialogue, I hope of course, that you will take up some further issues of our action plan. Also, it will be of course the start of the millennium multilateral negotiations in Seattle at the end of this year. My personal hope is that the TACD will tackle the WTO process as such. Commissioner Bonino is in close contact with Sir Leon Brittan to make sure that civil society is taken duly into account into the WTO process. Sir Leon Brittan has been very receptive to the involvement of NGOs in the process and, as you may know, a number of meetings with the European consumer NGOs have been organised.

Unfortunately, attendance was not impressive and it was agreed that the Commission would organise, later this year, some information sessions on the WTO process for the European NGOs.

I would like to encourage you to develop your key ideas on WTO-related matters. We hear from some of you that consumers may question further trade liberalisation, and may feel that globalisation is not really beneficial. It is all the more important that consumers should have a say in further trade negotiations. Our feeling is that unless the consumer voice is better structured in this respect, it will be difficult for it to be heard given the many other voices seeking to influence world trade negotiations.

This is why I would suggest that the TACD as such also deals with this issue. My feeling is that a joint position on this matter of the EU and US Consumer associations from the two biggest trading partners in the world would have to be listened to.

I would like to conclude by thanking you once again for your hard work and look forward to the next rounds of TACD meetings.