Speaking today on the publication of a study by the European Commission on supply restrictions imposed by manufacturers which prevent retailers buying products in one country and selling them in another, EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren said:

“The study shows that consumers could save some € 14bn on their food bills if retailers were not constrained by these restrictions, known as Territorial Supply Constraints (TSCs). We are grateful to the Commission for having carried out this independent investigation. It sets out the facts and provides empirical evidence that TSCs are a widespread practice. It is now time for the Single Market to work for consumers in this area, and to put a hard stop to these restrictions which prevent retailers providing their customers with the full range of branded goods at the best price.”

TSCs are restrictions imposed by manufacturers that make it impossible for retailers to choose where to source products. While manufacturers can source inputs globally and focus production on a limited number of sites, retailers have no choice but to accept the manufacturer’s conditions preventing them from sourcing in one country and selling in another, forcing them to use only the manufacturers’ designated national distributor. These large manufacturers supply essential must-have products which consumers expect to find in a shop, and which retailers therefore have to stock. These are one of the main reasons why consumers pay significantly different prices across Europe for the same branded goods, with no other justification.

Speaking today on the launch of the Commission New Consumer Agenda, EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren said:

“The green and digital transition is fully underway, and is being driven in large part by consumers and what they buy. The COVID-19 pandemic has further accelerated the digital transition, making the Commission’s new agenda very timely. Retailers help by providing consumers with ever more ways of making sustainable choices and by asking suppliers for more sustainable, circular, and eco-designed products.”

Retailers need to be able to innovate and respond quickly to changes in consumer behaviour and expectations. To do so, they need a stable and predictable business and policy climate: harmonised rules – and no gold-plating by national governments – , coherent national consumer polices and effective and efficient enforcement across the EU are the best ways of ensuring this.

Legislators need to be careful not to create rigid legal obligations that increase costs and administrative burdens, with only limited benefits. Our experience has shown that sustainability needs to start in the design of the product, making it attractive to consumers. The Ecodesign Directive has already proven its value in promoting better energy consumption, repairability and recyclability, and we believe that the Commission should use this as the primary vehicle for meeting Europe’s sustainability goals. Introducing a ‘right to repair’ may not fundamentally change consumer behaviour, and raises practical questions that have not been resolved yet.

Reacting today to the Commission draft directive on EU rules for setting minimum wages, EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren said:

“Retailers and wholesalers value their employees highly, and always seek to properly reward their hard work.  This hard work was clearly demonstrated during the height of the COVID crisis in maintaining reliable supplies of essentials despite disruption and unprecedented demand. We pay well above the minimum rates on average where countries set these by legislation, and engage positively in collective bargaining where that is the norm.  We therefore see no need, nor the possibility under the Treaty, to set rules on pay and collective bargaining at EU level.”

Retail and wholesale are Europe’s largest private-sector employer, providing 29 million direct jobs, including many opportunities for women and young people. We support proper employee protection and national minimum wages in countries, in accordance with national law and practice.   We believe that wages should be set at the closest possible level to the workplace to adequately respond to the fundamental and rapid changes in our sector, accelerated by the pandemic. How this works and best practice in our sector, see our Policy Guidance on the Future of Work in Retail and Wholesale).

In her State of the Union speech on 16 September, Commission President von der Leyen said:

“We must tear down the barriers of the Single Market. We must cut red tape. We must step up implementation and enforcement. And we must restore the four freedoms – in full and as fast as possible. The linchpin of this is a fully functioning Schengen area of free movement.”

The Commission has proposed a Council Recommendation (COM(2020) 499) with some helpful ideas on a common approach to dealing with a possible second wave of COVID-19 or future pandemics and avoid piecemeal border closures based on widely differing criteria for assessing risk.

Ahead of the European Council this week, the organisations below call upon Europe’s leaders to agree to establish such a common approach.

We fully support measures to contain the spread of the virus and the need for action by national governments to protect their citizens. However, the actions of some governments in maintaining major restrictions on European citizens moving from other EU member states can often seem haphazard, and ultimately damaging to the European economy. It makes little sense in terms of containing the virus to prevent travel from another member state with a similar level of infection if the member state taking that action still allows travel within its borders.

Speaking today on the launch of the Commission’s communication on a Retail Payments Strategy for the EU, EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren said:

“The COVID pandemic has accelerated the existing trend for transactions to go online. At the moment, this inevitably means more use of credit and debit cards. Retailers and other merchants already pay a lot for accepting cards, and even more if a transaction is online. We are seeing, despite very welcome action on some card fees under EU legislation, other unregulated fees rising as much as 150% over the last 18 months. This has cost merchants, already struggling due to COVID, nearly €1 billion extra, and this trend looks likely to continue. We therefore welcome the Commission commitment in today’s communication to promote alternative payment systems. But these will take at least another 2-4 years to roll out, and merchants need urgent action now to address this growing problem.”

Creating a vibrant, competitive and robust European payments market is in everyone’s interest, as well as keeping access open to all alternatives, including cash. We are therefore very pleased to see the Retail Payments Strategy, and recently welcomed the announced collaboration between European banks in the European Payments Initiative. We fully share the Commission’s determination to get competition in retail payments moving through use of instant payment technology such as SCTInst and new applications for mobile payments, already important as people increasingly move to buying goods and services on their mobile phones.

EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren commented on today’s publication of the European Commission “Action Plan to fight against tax evasion and to make taxation simple and easy”:

“After 27 years of the supposedly complete single market, a more harmonised taxation system remains one of its major pieces of unfinished business. It should be the easiest thing in the world to operate a company cross-border in Europe, but, on top of other barriers, a burdensome and fragmented tax bureaucracy makes this a real headache.  Many governments have recognised, in the current crisis, that easing tax obligations are vital to supporting and driving economic recovery. If this is true now, it is equally important to address these barriers and burdens on a permanent basis.”

EuroCommerce Director-General Christian Verschueren today welcomed the official launch of the new European Payment Initiative (EPI) consortium, to create a new unified payment scheme and solution, allow them to process instant or mobile payments, and set an alternative by-pass the major non-European card schemes.

“A new, fully European, payment scheme, independent of Visa and Mastercard, has been needed for many years in order to provide real competition. This is increasingly important now that merchants are seeing further increases in costs which are not regulated and by the reluctance of the Commission to expand the scope of the current Interchange Fee Regulation to address them. This initiative is therefore most welcome. However, at least four previous initiatives have all failed; this one will as well, if merchants, who are key to its success, are not full participants in the final solution being proposed.”