Proposition 50K0855

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 11 avril 1999 relative aux contrats portant sur l'acquisition d'un droit d'utilisation d'immeubles à temps partagé.

General information ¶

Submitted by

Groen Open Vld Vooruit PS | SP Ecolo MR Verhofstadt Ⅰ

Submission date

Aug. 29, 2000

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

EC Directive consumer protection contract

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Abstained from voting

CD&V N-VA FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Alfons Borginon (Open Vld) abstained from voting.
• Karel Pinxten (Open Vld) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

Nov. 30, 2000 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker, Mr. Speaker. The purpose of this bill is to address the concerns of the European Commission in the field of international private law and the conformity of Article 9 of the Directives.

A comprehensive report of 11 pages was provided to you. This bill has also been discussed extensively in three meetings of our committee. Especially Ms. Creyf has addressed this. I noticed that she submitted another amendment. She cannot leave it! For every detail of the discussion of the amendments, I refer to this comprehensive written report.

Ultimately, as you may have read, the Articles 1 to 5 were adopted without further discussion with ten votes against four abstentions. Article 6 was rejected with one amendment. Articles 7 and 8 were adopted, as well as the whole draft, by ten votes to four.

I also point out that on page 11 two errata have been made. I thank the committee members for their commitment and in particular I thank the secretary of the committee who closely followed everything.

Thank you, Mr. Van Aperen. I must say that there is nothing on page 11 of my copy except ‘Appendices-Appendices’.

The proposal concerns the sale of timeshare. Therefore, it is a matter of amendment to the law of 11 April 1999. As the reporter says, it is mainly an adaptation of the European directive. So that is no problem. With the amendment, however, the existing Article 13 is also deleted in the law. This article stipulates that the time-sharing seller must have an insurance, a bank guarantee or a guarantee. He must therefore be able to provide financial guarantees.

The Minister now claims that this article is not technically feasible in practice and that it is not included in the European directive. The Minister considers it not feasible and therefore the article is deleted. Consequently, the seller is not required to provide any financial guarantee and therefore the consumer is not given any guarantee, which makes him completely unprotected. We have opposed it and we are supported in our opposition by the BEUC, the European Consumer Organization, and by the Council of Europe. Both institutions argue that new financial guarantees are needed for the sale of timeshare. They also consider that the current Directive does not provide sufficient protection.

We have a law that gives this protection, but our minister abolishes it. We have submitted an amendment. We can accept that the insurance element is deleted because an insurance is based on a risk that must be distributed. The risk is not sufficiently distributed here, making it difficult to conclude an insurance. However, this does not apply to the bank guarantee and to the deposit. In our amendment, we retain the financial guarantees in the form of a bank guarantee or deposit but we remove the insurance guarantee. We supported this amendment in the committee, but unfortunately we did not ⁇ it. The majority believed that this should be eliminated. We believe that the Minister has chosen an easy-to-use solution. Instead of looking for another protection, another feasible initiative, he simply removed a consumer protection scheme because it would be unfeasible.

General discussion is closed. The general discussion is closed.