The European Commission has opened a public consultation in order to gather the points of view of stakeholders regarding the situation of  the implementation of the Directive on electronic commerce (2000/31/EC), and the future of electronic commerce in the internal market. Consultation is open until 15 October 2010.

Electronic commerce constitutes an important mean to promote cross-border trade, improving the accessibility of Europe's population to more varied products, to more qualitative products, and exerting greater price competition in the on-line and off-line world. However, 10 years after the adoption of the “directive concerning certain legal aspects of information society services and, in particular, electronic commerce” the so-called Electronic Commerce Directive, the development of retail electronic commerce remains limited to less than 2% of European total retail trade.

For that reason, the European Commission wishes to study in detail the various reasons for the limited takeoff of electronic commerce, as stated in the Retail Market Monitoring Report “Towards more efficient and fairer retail services in the internal market for 2020" and evaluate the implementation of the Directive as announced in the Communication “A Digital Agenda for Europe”.

Topics for E-commerce Commission's Consultation

• The level of development, both national and cross-border, of information society services.
• Issues concerning the application of Article 3(4) by the Member States (administrative cooperation).
• Contractual restrictions on cross-border on-line sales.
• Cross-border on-line commercial communications, in particular by the regulated professions.
• The development of on-line press services.
• The interpretation of the provisions concerning the liability of intermediary information society service providers.
• The development of on-line pharmacy services
• The resolution of on-line disputes.

Answers to questions must be sent by 15 October 2010, by using the electronic application IPM. They can also be transmitted by electronic mail to the following address: markt-e-commerce@ec.europa.eu or by post to the European Commission, DG Internal Market and Services, Unit E2 - Services II, J59 8/61, B-1049 Brussels, Belgium. Responses can be in any of the 23 official languages of the EU, but replying in French, English, or German would enable the Commission to process them more quickly.