International

These are difficult times for retail. Chainstores are failing and there's a threat of large numbers of vacant shops in high streets. For some, the answer lies in dreaming up new formulas: small, creative shops often do well. In Rotterdam, for example, there's a crockery store and a shop where you can get everything to do with lighting. The European Commission is now proposing to force any shops which sell their stuff via the internet to deliver throughout Europe. They appear to have gone bonkers. We should be cherishing these creative local entrepreneurs. We badly need them.

It sounds great: the consumer in Europe mustn't be discriminated against on the basis of his or her country of residence. You want to buy shoes on a Polish website? The internet shop can't refuse you if you're a consumer in the Netherlands. This is an aspect of the ban on ‘geo-blocking’ which the European Commission is proposing to introduce this year. I'm also against such discrimination. If a site presents itself as being international, you should be able to expect to access and use it.

The European Commission takes no notice at all, however, of the fact that the corner shop bakers could also have a website. The official policy is also aimed at making websites ‘omnichannel’, meaning that you can use either the physical shop or the website equally. For many shops that’s attractive, and the same goes even for the corner shop bakers if it means that it makes things easier for the customer to place an order and then be able to choose whether he or she wants the goods sent to their home or to pick them up in the shop. This baker must now, however, be prepared to deliver to the rest of Europe. That isn’t of course realistic.

Recently in a parliamentary report on the retail trade I managed to have the role of the small independent shop recognised for the first time. Those local bakers are worth their weight in gold. Just likes other local shops, they give colour to the high street or town centre. Chainstores are also necessary, but as consumers we don’t want to see one-size-fits-all everywhere. That’s why the independent shop survives. About a week ago the European Parliament also received my proposal to exclude the independent, local shop from a future ban on geoblocking. The Commission isn’t convinced, however. They still want ‘in principle’ to impose the European internal market on to every shopkeeper. Well, as has been said before by myself and others: ‘over my dead body’.