Euro Coop welcomes the European Parliament’s position for a fairer retail market

“The report is a laudable effort of summarizing the many different challenges faced by the retail sector”, Rodrigo Gouveia, Euro Coop Secretary General, commented. “We share the views of the necessity to continue dialogue exercises, while ensuring coordination among Commission services, and in particular we would like to support the European Parliament calls to the European Commission for establishing a European Action Plan for retail.”

Euro Coop is glad to see that the report clearly stands for freedom of contract, encourages shared responsibility between retailers and suppliers, acknowledges the importance of effective enforcement of already existing legislation and privileges a self-regulation approach, rather than a regulatory one. We also welcome the encouragement of alternative dispute resolution means, and are ready to play our role to respond to the energy efficiency, food waste and other broader sustainability challenges – as many of our consumer cooperatives members are already doing.

On the other hand, Euro Coop is disappointed to see that MEPs did not support the recognition of the co-operative model as one of the tools that helps the retail market to function in a more balanced, sustainable and fairer way. The co-operative business model, based on ethical values and a unique ownership structure by consumers, provides efficient solutions to many of the challenges outlined in the report and, as such, a specific recognition of its role and the call for its development would have been welcomed.