European Parliament : Notice to members - Petition No 0338/2017 by Guido Serra (Italian) on multi-language contracts and instruments for private services - PE 615.539v01-00 - Committee on Petitions

European Parliament

2014-2019

Committee on Petitions

20.12.2017

NOTICE TO MEMBERS

Subject:Petition No 0338/2017 by Guido Serra (Italian) on multi-language contracts and instruments for private services

1.

Summary of petition

The petitioner complains about the fact that while freedom of movement is an established right across the EU, services are provided only in the local language of each Member State despite the fact that most large service providers are present in most Member States. As an example he explains that while he can have an Italian bank account, he cannot use it in Germany as primary bank account, as most of utility providers will reject it as a reference bank account for withdrawals. Consequently, he must choose a local bank and use the local language. He sees no point in not being able to use a web interface or not to have contracts in his native language. The petitioner suggests that local banks be urged to offer two or more languages for their products, such as mobile phone contracts or insurance. Furthermore, he would like to have an interface where he can interact with his bank in his mother tongue. The petitioner assumes that large financial or telecom companies receive fiscal advantages when they register as a European company.

2.

Admissibility

Declared admissible on 30 August 2017. Information requested from Commission under Rule 216(6).

3.

Commission reply, received on 20 December 2017

The Commission stresses that the freedom to provide services pursuant to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) also entails the freedom to receive services1 and therefore prevents explicit or implicit discrimination of recipients of services based on nationality2.

• 1 See in general case C-286/82 and 26/83, Luisi et Carbone v Ministero del Tesoro.

• 2 See in this regard, inter alia, case C-388/01 Commission v Italy.

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United in diversity

This general principle is further specified in Article 20(2) of the Services Directive (Directive 2006/123/EC) which contains a specific prohibition to discriminate recipients of services (including consumers and businesses) on the basis of their nationality or place of residence. This includes indirect forms of discrimination, where the use of a given bank account is used by the trader as a tool to discriminate on the basis of nationality and/or residence.

On the other hand, these provisions do not prejudge the possibility to apply different conditions where this is justified due to objective reasons that can vary from country to country, such as due to the distance or different market conditions. In this specific regard, in order to increase certainty for traders and customers on certain hypothesis where no differential treatment can be justified, on 25 May 2016 the Commission adopted a proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on addressing geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers' nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market1. This proposal provides for a directly applicable explicit prohibition on traders to limit access to their online interfaces based on nationality and/or residence of the recipients, to discriminate foreign payment systems and to apply different general conditions of access to their goods and/or services in specific situations where under no circumstances an objective reason can justify such discrimination, including where a customer seeks to receive a service in a physical location where the trader operates. If this proposal would be adopted, the application by the trader of different conditions depending on nationality or residence of the customer should not be justified and, hence, would be directly banned, without the need to assess any alleged justification put forward by the trader.

In any case, the trader maintains its commercial freedom to define its general conditions of access and to differentiate them according to different territories targeted through different brands, subsidiaries and/or websites, also in order to take into account specific national requirements (including the use of language).

In view of their specificities, the Services Directive does not apply to certain sectors, such as banking and payment services. However, Art. 9 of Regulation (EU) No 260/2012 (SEPA Regulation) specifies that a company or public authority accepting credit transfers or using direct debits in euro is not allowed to impose on their clients to locate the account in a specific Member State. Therefore, if credit transfers and direct debits are payment methods accepted by a payee, the refusal of these payments from a foreign account is a breach of EU law.

As regards the possibility to incentivise or even oblige the use of foreign languages by large multinational companies operating as a European Company (Societas Europea), the Commission observes that the SE Regulation2 merely regulates the company form on corporate issues such as formation, subscribed capital, board structure, general meetings, winding-up and liquidation etc. It does not contain any provisions on the language of the services which the company provides and is therefore not relevant in this regard.

Conclusion

1 COM(2015)289, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on addressing geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on customers' nationality, place of residence or place of establishment within the internal market and amending Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 and Directive 2009/22/EC, available athttps://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/news/proposal-regulation-geo-blocking.

2 Council Regulation (EC) No 2157/2001 of 8 October 2001 on the Statute for a European company (SE).

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The solution proposed by the petitioner, i.e. imposing on some companies, such as those active in more than one Member State, the obligation to provide all their different services in different languages may actually result in a significant administrative burden as well as in intrusive measures concerning the internal structure of multinational groups. These would not be justified by the status of European Company. Moreover, many multinational groups do not adopt such a structure, but they rather have different multinational corporate structures with different degrees of independence for the individual national branches/subsidiaries, as well as different information systems and interfaces.

In view of the above observations, the Commission considers that the removal of barriers to the freedom to provide and receive services pursuant to the Treaty and the specific secondary legislation enacted for this purpose (such as the Services Directive and, when adopted, the Geoblocking Regulation, as well as the SEPA Regulation with regard to payment services) aim exactly at ensuring that European citizens and business may also use their own domestic services in the single market area, in line with the objectives expressed by the petitioner.

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