A New Consumer Law for Europe?

Conference held at the Austrian Ministry of Justice, 22 January 2009

On 8 October 2008 the European Commission presented a Proposal for a new Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on Consumer Rights. It aims at revising four existing directives on consumer protection, i.e. the directives on contracts negotiated away from business premises, on unfair terms in consumer contracts, on distance contracts and on consumer sales and guarantees. The implementation of the proposed directive would have far-reaching implications on consumer contract law in Austria and the whole of Europe. One of the most significant changes brought about by the Proposal is the abandoning of the approach of minimum harmonisation in favour of full harmonisation: Under the Proposal Member States are no longer permitted to introduce a higher a level of consumer protection than that provided for by the European legislator.

The first conference on the Proposal in the German-speaking area was initiated and organised by Professors Brigitta Jud and Christiane Wendehorst of Vienna University and was held at the Austrian Ministry of Justice on 22 January 2009.

Following welcome addresses delivered by Georg Kathrein of the Austrian Ministry of Justice and Alina Lengauer, Vice Dean of Vienna University’s Law Faculty, Johannes Stabentheiner of the Austrian Ministry of Justice and Karl-Heinz Oehler of the German Ministry of Justice gave an introduction to the proposed directive. Martin Schmidt-Kessel of Osnabrück University then considered the Proposal within the context of European law harmonisation. This was followed by papers focusing on different areas provided for in the Proposal and outlining the implications a possible transposition of the Proposal would have on Austrian law which were presented by Wilma Dehn, Judge at the Vienna Court of Appeal, and Professors Meinhard Lukas (Linz), Martin Schauer (Vienna), Brigitta Jud and Georg Graf (Salzburg). The concluding presentation by Christiane Wendehorst focused on the issues involved in transposing the Proposal into domestic law.

The conference was completed by a panel discussion on the economic and practical implications of the Proposal which was chaired by Dr. Eric Frey (Der Standard). The participants of the discussion were Irmgard Griss, President of the Austrian Supreme Court, Gerhard Benn-Ibler, President of the Austrian Chamber of Lawyers, Rosemarie Schön of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber, Ulrike Docekal of the Austrian Consumer Association,  Herbert Pichler of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber and Harald Glatz of the Austrian Chamber of Labour.