eBay: archaic trading laws are harming EU consumers

Davey Winder
Monday, 23 June 2008 18:04

Business IT - Technology

eBay launches lobbying campaign aimed at the European Parliament, arguing that EU laws damage trade. In a wonderful display of thumb suck sulking, eBay complains that traditional retailers are exploiting the rules to benefit their business. Well duh!

A coalition of online traders, led by eBay, is set to start lobbying the European Parliament in order to press for sweeping changes to trading laws. Laws which, says eBay, restrict competition by restricting cross-border trading online.

Surprisingly this comes just a matter of days after the European Consumer Affairs Commissioner gave a speech in London where she stated quite clearly she would be proposing just such a set of new rules to level the playing field. According to the Ecommerce Journal Meglena Kuneva said that a "single, simple set of core rights and obligations" to simplify shopping across borders and bring down consumer costs should be introduced this autumn.

This follows the publication of a 27 EU country survey which suggests 37 percent of people are ready to purchase online from within their own borders, while 57 percent want to buy from another EU country.

“These figures underline how much work we still have to do to boost confidence in the online internal market" Kuneva insists, adding "consumers and retailers are beginning to embrace e-commerce at national level but internal market barriers still persist online. The potential of the online internal market to deliver greater choice and lower price to consumers and new markets for retailers is considerable. We need to redouble our efforts to tackle the remaining borders."

eBay apparently has the support of Kuneva as well as the EU services commissioner Charlie McCreevy. Given that consumers are only likely to save money out of the deal, I suspect it will have their blessing as well.