The European Parliament opposed a bid on Wednesday, by 13 European Union countries, to increase consumer protections in a draft law on the distance marketing of financial services, Reuters reported. The Parliament is meeting in Strasbourg, France.
The proposed law would facilitate the sale of financial services by telephone, fax, e-mail and the Internet. The proposal also seeks to protect consumers from fraud, high-pressure salesmanship and some unsolicited sales communications.
All EU member states, except Britain and the Netherlands, want to strengthen the original proposal by the European Commission to set a minimum level of consumer protections, on which individual countries could improve. In this first of two readings, the Parliament sided with Britain, the Netherlands and financial services industry, saying that the level of consumer protection should not go above an agreed-upon limit.
