eBay’s recent call for a right to a larger consumer choice online for buyers and sellers to resell original products could be cemented with the now finalized passing of the Lisbon Treaty.
Following the signature of Czech President Vaclav Klaus on 4 November a bill incorporating the Lisbon treaty into the Czech parliament all 27 Member states now abide by this new Treaty which co-exists, and does not replace any of the other treaties but realigns Europe into a cohesion of future strategy, en masse. Our European norm is set to be changed radically and just one of these changes will be the citizen’s right to change regulations and Directives emanating from the European Commission in Brussels.
For the first time, one million citizens from different Member States will be able to directly request that the Commission brings forward an initiative of interest to them in an area of EU competence.
In a process begun several months ago in the UK and the EU and more formally in September’s inaugural Strasbourg session, eBay has been promoting a petition to have restrictions on individual user’s trade of authentic goods lifted as sellers seem to be experiencing barriers to their selling practices online.
The campaign was launched at the EU Parliament in Strasbourg in September with the aid of Alex von Schirmeister, director general of eBay, British MEPs Mary Honeyball and Roger Helmer as well as small business owners from the UK, France and Germany who sell via eBay and who state that they have been restricted in online selling from brand owners.
 “EU policymakers are in the process of reviewing the selective distribution laws which have to be revised by next year. What we’re hoping is to actually influence law making. We think that the current framework needs to be revised, needs to be updated and we’re hoping that policy makers today that hear this message will take this into account when they draft the law,” says the Director General of eBay von Schirmeister.
The Consumer Choice campaign is calling on the European Commission to ensure that when it amends the Vertical Restraints Regulation and Guidelines consumers and small businesses aren’t the victim of unfair trade practices that ignore the power of the internet to increase the level of choice and value available its website consumerchoice.eu states. When asking European Commissioner of Competition Viviane Reding’s team how they are proceeding with the review the only response New Europe received is that they are looking at how to redress this, as the regulation governing this sector is up for appraisal and amendments as necessary by March of 2010. But if the 750,000 signatures gathered by the Consumer Choice campaign in September have already increased due to the public campaign the citizen’s themselves might end up asking the Commission to change the Regulation without waiting for the re-appraisal. The Swedish Presidency has announced that the treaty enters into force on 1 December, “It  opens up for a more democratic, transparent and efficent Union,” says Swedish Prime Minister Fredr­ik Reinfeldt head of the European Council Presidency.
Perhaps online retailers will have a Happy Christmas after all?