Николай Младенов, докладчик - Mr President, I would like to thank the Commissioner and my colleagues for their very interesting and insightful comments on this report. I am a firm believer that the best-protected consumer is the consumer who is best informed on their rights and can defend those rights based on the information provided. We as legislators need to make sure that consumers receive information and are free to make the choice of whether to take certain protection against a certain risk or not, rather than to impose a uniform level on all of them.

Mrs Wallis, Andreas Schwab and Mr Burke raised extremely important points that go beyond the very limited scope of this report. I am very happy that Commissioner Kuneva has said that the Commission will pursue a further study of many of the questions raised in this House. I am convinced that Parliament will look very carefully at the study that the Commission produces, precisely to go back and look at the questions that Mr Burke has raised, which are absolutely valid and an increasing matter of discussion in many Member States, including my own. Mr Schwab raised the question of a uniform approach to damages, which is a very valid question for all of us. I hope that the Commission’s study will address that issue.

Let me also say a couple of things about the follow-up to this report. I hope that the Commission will take very seriously its responsibility to monitor national authorities’ implementation of existing penalty provisions. Indeed, when we were gathering information in order to put this report together, a small number of Member States were not very forthcoming in providing information on how the system functions in their societies, but we did manage to receive an adequate reply in the end. Looking carefully at how the system functions and at how it can be improved in the future is an important task that I am sure the Commission will take very seriously in the months and years to come.