UEIL News
European Commission ignores evidence of unfair trading practices in the business-to- business non-food supply chain
On 16 July 2014, the European Commission published its long awaited communication on unfair trading practices (UTPs) in the business-to-business supply chain in Europe. However, despite the substantial body of evidence revealing UTPs across a range of industries, the Commission’s attention will only be focused on addressing practices in the food sector.
Over the past year, CECRA (European Council for Motor Trades and Repairers) has been supporting the Commission’s efforts to tackle UTPs in business-to-business relationships, following the launch of a consultation focusing on the food and non-food sector in January 2013. In its initial assessment, the Commission highlighted the lack of efficient enforcement of existing national rules and asked stakeholders to share their views on the possible next steps in tackling this issue.
Nevertheless, the follow-up of the consultation on UTPs in the food and non-food supply chain will be restricted to a communication encouraging Member States to look for ways to improve protection of small food producers and retailers against the unfair practices of their sometimes much stronger trading partners.
Irrespective of the merits of further investigation and regulation of UTPs in the food sector, CECRA believes that evidence collected by the Commission from a range of non-food businesses and organisations across Europe clearly demonstrates a wider need for a clear, consistent and balanced system of UTP regulation.
CECRA Director Bernard Lycke remarked: “With the right input from stakeholders, the Commission can achieve a workable and proportionate system of cross-sector regulation, which supports the competitive independence of smaller parties, encourages innovation, investment and employment, and ensures that consumers receive a fair share of the resulting benefits.”
In order to ensure that UTPs in various non-food sector remain on the Commission’s radar, CECRA has been contacting the newly-elected members of the European Parliament, urging them to highlight this issue during the new legislative term.
Unfair practices in the Automotive Sector It is worth noting that action on UTPs and the Commission’s CARS 2020 process are linked in the sense that they could help provide legal certainty for dealers, who have made investments trusting that the contractual clauses guaranteed under the former Motor Vehicle Block Exemption Regulation would continue to be respected after May 2013. This legal certainty could be achieved through a process to establish a legal framework for contracts regulating vertical distribution systems.
Such a process could be seen in the initiative on unfair trading practices, which is prepared by the Commission’s Directorate- General for Internal Market and Services.
Fiscal issues: Energy Taxation Directive
The Italian Presidency has the intension to finalise the negotiations on the review of the Energy Taxation Directive (ETD) and has produced a Progress Report on the ETD, in which the inclusion of lubes under EMCS is identified as one of the outstanding issues. The last technical working group meeting on the ETD took place on 25 July where certain EU Member States continued to express their objection to include lubes under EMCS. UEIL will continue its outreach activities in the coming months to underline its concern to include lubes under EMCS and to emphasize that other more effective actions can be undertaken to address the concern on fraud. UEIL also formalised in close cooperation with Europia realistic alternatives and informed the EU Member States of these alternatives (this will hopefully facilitate a compromise in the end).
It is to be expected that negotiations on the review of the Energy Taxation Directive will continue for maximum 6 months (decision taken by unanimity).
Up till now EU Member States have only found an agreement on the separation rate structure and the proportionality principle. Among EU Member States there is still a large disagreement on mainly aspects of the Directive including on levels of minimum tax rates, tax treatment of biofuels, bio liquids, commercial gasoil and energy products used for agriculture, transitional periods and tax reliefs below the minimum levels. Only when an agreement on above issues is found, an agreement can be expected on the inclusion of lubes under EMCS.
LINK
www.ueil.org
UEIL Technical Committee
The Technical Committee and the Competition Committee have issued 2 OEM Bulletins since the last Lube issue: • Ferrari Owners’ Manual - July 2014 • United Kingdom Blender - July 2014
• Mercedes-Benz BEAM QR-Code - August 2014
The current cases, which have been raised by the membership, are:
• Agricultural Equipment - 1 case • Off Road Equipment - 1 case • Passenger Cars - 1 case • Heavy Duty Diesel - 1 case
A meeting was held in Stuttgart with Mercedes Benz on Monday 28th July 2014 to review UEIL’s concerns over the proposed introduction of the requirement for a QR code for packaging.
LINK
www.ueil.org/en/news/technical-committee
LUBE MAGAZINE NO.123 OCTOBER 2014
55
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