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To help achieve this goal, the revision of the E-Commerce Directive is amust so that platforms take responsibility
and liability for the role they exert beyond being an intermediation service. Necessary measures in the public
interest to be taken at national / local level should be managed by authorities to bring quick solutions through a
multistakeholder approach. HOTRECwill continue playing a pro-active role in the efforts to achieve a sustainable
and responsible ‘collaborative’ economy and will be available for any exchange also in the period 2019-2024.
2 - BETTER REGULATION - A new thinking on subsidiarity and exerting EU competences is needed
5 years ago, the newly appointed Juncker Commission promised to be ‘big on big
things and small on small things’. Some concrete results were achieved through the
REFIT programme and a shorter but more focused legislative agenda. Nevertheless,
it is still not rare to see EU legislative proposals being made for which the ‘European’
added value is not evident. This is not helping the European project and also
affects local businesses who are confronted with new one-size-fits all regulatory
requirements, hindering also innovation.
A Better Regulation agenda is therefore needed. It shall include a new thinking on subsidiarity and on how
EU legislative competences are exerted to ensure that EU action primarily focuses on cross-border issues.
The sectoral impact of horizontal legislation shall also be better taken into consideration and derogations be
granted whenever a negative impact on local businesses which do not operate cross-border is identified. EU
regulatory action should be reserved to tackle large cross-border problems.
3 - DIGITAL - revise the EU regulatory framework to recognise platforms’ liabilities and ensure a fairer
and more balanced digital single market
Online platforms are playing an increasing role in the economy, with a value of the
e-commerce market which reached 500 billion EUR already in 2016. Platforms’
influence, role and thus responsibility have augmented enormously over the past
years. Old regulations still in force, like the E-Commerce Directive dating from 2000,
may not offer the proper responses to today’s challenges, and new situations.
Therefore, it is of crucial importance to review legislation in the light of the new
market conditions and therefore enforce online platforms’ liability on the markets
according to their actual influence and role.
A better balance and constant monitoring of the developments around online platforms is necessary, in order
to adapt to changing circumstances and to safeguard all businesses’, as well as citizens’ interests. With
this goal in mind, HOTREC calls on the EU institutions to take action by launching the necessary review of
the E-Commerce Directive to help further rebalance the market between the dominant online platforms and
the millions of, especially small and micro-enterprises, in Europe, in order to provide for proper protection
against unfair practices. HOTREC considers that the EU framework must be continuously adapted to market
developments and properly implemented in order to take account of online platforms‘ liability under the
changing market circumstances. Fairness in the platform economy is essential for businesses to put sufficient
resources also, inter alia, into their own innovation.
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2019 EU elections
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White Paper for Hospitality in Europe