Minister Mitchell O’Connor Supports EU Proposal to Prevent Geo-Blocking
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation Mary Mitchell O’Connor attended a day-long meeting of EU Single Market Ministers in Brussels on Monday, November 28, to support the proposal for an EU Regulation to prevent geo-blocking, the practice whereby consumers are charged different prices on websites based on their nationality or the location from which they are buying.
“Many Irish people will be shopping online in the run up to Christmas and we should not be paying over the odds for goods that are cheaper from other locations. This requires EU-wide rather than country specific regulation,” Mitchell O’Connor said.
Mitchell O’Connor also participated in a discussion on achieving greater progress on Europe’s Single Market, following an Irish-led initiative where the Minister, together with her counterparts from nine other EU countries called on the European Commission to introduce ambitious measures to make it easier for businesses to provide services on a cross-border basis into other EU Member States.
“A business should be able to go anywhere in Europe and provide its services without being confronted with disproportionate and unjustified requirements. This is currently not the case,” Mitchell O’Connor remarked. “European service providers are still confronted with too many obstacles across the EU. It is time that we make a real effort to strengthen the Single Market for services, and turn the principle of free movement of services into a greater reality”.
