EU Consumer Rights Directive less controversial than original draft

A revised Consumer Rights Directive has been put forward by the European Commission and may become law by 2013.

As with the original 2008 draft of the Consumer Rights Directive, the aim is to harmonise consumer protection across the EU.

Unlike the original, however, this incarnation of the Directive has been limited; only focusing on distance and doorstep selling and not interfering with other consumer protection laws in member states.

The original proposals for the Consumer Rights Directive were deeply unpopular with EU countries that have strong consumer laws; including the UK and Finland. One controversial clause would have ended much of the protection that UK consumers rely on, including the right to reject faulty goods.

The automatic right to reject goods if a fault is found within "a reasonable time", which is around a month or so, would have been replaced with a repair or replacement option only; even if a fault was discovered on the day goods were bought.

UK consumers would also have been given a shorter time in which to seek redress for faulty goods. It was proposed to limit the time to seek redress for inherently faulty goods to two years.

In England, Wales and Northern Ireland people are currently given up to six years for this. The time limit is five years in Scotland.

There was such strong opposition to these proposals that the Directive was eventually dropped in May last year.

The new Directive, however. seems far more acceptable to the UK Government. The changes to the Distance Selling are minimal and give consumers up to 14 days in which to reject and return goods.

The UK Distance Selling Regulations give seven working days starting the day after receipt of goods in which to reject them. But they do not give a time period within which goods must be returned so this clarifies the law.

There are still some inconsistencies that consumer rights organisations are unhappy about. There is real concern that an amendment which would have given consumers protection for online digital content such as music, movies and software may not make it into the Directive.

Jill Johnstone, Consumer Focus director of international policy and advocacy told us this was a real concern.

"Including digital products in the scope of the definition of tangible goods was a really positive move. But if this will remain in the directive is unclear. It is really hard to see how this will pan out," she said.

The European Parliament will now debate the Directive during the week commencing 7 March.

A statement given to us by the Department of Business, Innovation and Skills said: "This is not the end of the process. There is still some way to go in the negotiations but we are hopeful that the Directive will be agreed by the end of this year (it will not come into force in the UK until 2013 at the earliest)."