Europese Commissie presenteert 'blauwe knop' voor internettransacties onder EU-regels (en) - Montesquieu Instituut

Next week, the European Commission will present solutions regarding the ‘blue button’. Facilitating cross-border trade, particularly online, is one of the priorities of the Polish Presidency.

Blue button is a proposal to establish a 28^thlegal regime of European contract law, in addition to the 27 Member States’ regimes, which would be a collection of codifications of the provisions in force in the European Union to facilitate e-commerce. The help concerns mainly cross-border transactions.

The Polish Presidency is convinced that the creation of this new solution is not only beneficial for hundreds of millions of European consumers, but also crucial for the further development of the EU market for e-commerce.

In practice, this alternative formula for transactions online could function by clicking an icon on the website, which would be in the form of a blue button (hence the name ‘blue button’). Using this option, the parties to a transaction would voluntarily agree to the transaction being based on the principles of European contract law and thus subject to the jurisdiction of those rules for resolving any disputes. Blue button does not preclude the application of national rules; it is rather an optional solution.

European Commission surveys suggest that as many as 70% of enterprises using the Internet to enter into buy or sell transactions declare that they will want to take advantage of European contract law. In addition, 44 % of consumers resign from cross-border transactions online as they fear the consequences of ignorance of the legal rules of another state. The Commission estimates that because of that the European economy loses EUR 26 billion a year.

In Poland, the barriers to doing business online are particularly visible. Hence the creation of a European contract law regime, which is a particularly strong part of the priorities of the Polish Presidency of the EU Council.