Retail Market Monitoring Report

Brussels, 5 July 2010 - Today, the European Commission published, for public consultation, its long awaited Retail Market Monitoring Report. EuroCommerce is especially gratified at the report’s recognition of the contribution to the EU economy already made by the retail sector and will submit full comments in due course.

"It must be remembered that the supply chain is a very complex construction, and that retail is only one element in the chain," noted EuroCommerce Secretary-General Xavier Durieu. "To compile our response, we will look closely at the assumptions on which the report is based."

 

EuroCommerce welcomes the fact that the report gives the retail sector a largely clean bill of health for the way in which it provides high quality goods to consumers at prices they can afford. However, it also identifies the key regulatory and other problems which limit the capacity of retail to make an even greater contribution to the economy.

 

It is regrettable that the Report makes no suggestions of possible answers to these problems - even though the Commission clearly has its own ideas on how to move forward. In the light of the better regulation policy, concrete initiatives should already have been outlined at this stage instead of waiting for a further document to be published.

 

EuroCommerce regrets that the deadline set for the public consultation (10 September 2010) is so tight. Given that we are approaching the summer break, a longer period would have been preferable.

 

EuroCommerce now calls on the Commission and European Parliament to focus on concrete answers to the specific problems that have been identified. Such solutions must be practical and proportionate to secure the necessary changes on the basis of real evidence of real need.

 

 

Patrice Pellegrino
Senior Adviser on Internal Market
T:+32 2 737 05 85
pellegrino@eurocommerce.be