The Council agreed on a general approach concerning a draft directive on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) and a draft regulation on On-line Dispute Resolution (ODR), pending the opinion of the European Parliament.
The objective of both proposals is to provide for simple, fast and affordable out-of-court settlement procedures designed to resolve disputes between consumers and traders arising from the sales of goods and services.
The initiative will ensure the establishment of ADR schemes where none exist today and define a common framework for ADR in the EU Member States by setting out common minimum quality principles in order to ensure that all ADR entities are impartial, transparent and efficient.
Existing national ADR schemes should be able to continue to operate within the new framework. The ADR system will be supplemented by an ODR mechanism involving the setting up of a European on-line dispute resolution platform (this will be an interactive website accessible electronically and free of charge in all languages of the Union).