Sir,

Regarding ‘EU justice chief plans civil code, privacy laws‘:

So far EU approximation of consumer contract law has shied away from fixing common sanctions and common procedural rules. In Luxembourg, we just lost after 12 years a cross-border package travel case with a Belgian tour operator. He invoked a one-year statutory limit to go to court as laid down in his country when Belgium implemented the package travel directive. The directive is silent on this issue.

In Luxembourg our normal civil code limit of 30 years should have applied as the tour operator acted in our country. Germany has a two-year limit for package travel. In France the five-year civil code limit is mandatory for B2C.

Viviane Reding’s ambitions should be to achieve a high level of harmonised substantive provisions and to add some common civil sanctions and key procedural rules for cross-border litigation.

This would be a first significant step towards the ultimate goal of an EU civil code.

Bob Schmitz

Union Luxembourgeoise des Consommateurs