Unfair trading practices / supply chain

Key points:

The EESC:

• sees the Green Paper as a positive and marked shift in the Commission's approach to unfair trading practices (UTPs);
• considers that the results of the High Level Forum for a Better Functioning Food Supply Chain are uncertain and the approaches proposed are insufficient to solve the problem of unfair practices. It would therefore urge the European Commission to come up with further initiatives;
• is convinced that matters are particularly grave when it comes to dealings between supermarkets on the one hand and farming and food SMEs on the other. There are forms and degrees of abuse here that do not occur elsewhere;
• calls on the European Commission to propose legislation banning UTPs. This should be based on an indicative list of the most typical such practices employed by the stronger contracting party and designed to transfer its own normal costs and risks to the weaker party;
• calls on the European Commission to work with national competition authorities in drawing up, on the basis of experience over recent decades, a radical revision of current – and evidently obsolete – competition rules in order to create fair competition also based on fair relevant information exchange in this sector.

Other EESC opinions:

• Retail market monitoring report (CESE 63/2011,  INT/531)
• Opinions on Retail theme
• Unfair commercial practices (CESE 105/2004, INT/201)
• Consumer information (CESE 960/2010, INT/500)
• Opinions on Consumers theme

For more information please contact the INT Section Secretariat.