§1.2.4 Interplay with other EU legislation

The UCTD applies to contracts concluded between sellers or suppliers and consumers in all sectors of economic activity (78). Thus, also other provisions of EU law, including other consumer protection rules, may apply to a given contract, depending on the type of contract in question. Other relevant rules, which may apply in parallel, could be horizontal rules on pre-contractual information and on the right of withdrawal in Directive 2011/83/EU (79) on consumer rights, or on unfair commercial practices in Directive 2005/29/EC (80). Similarly, rules relating to particular types of contracts may apply in addition to the UCTD, for instance, Directive 2008/48/EC (81) on credit agreements for consumers, Directive 2008/122/EC (82) on the protection of consumers in respect of certain aspects of timeshare, long-term holiday product, resale and exchange contracts, Directive 2014/17/EU (83) on credit agreements for consumers relating to residential immovable property, Directive (EU) 2015/2302 (84) on package travel and linked travel arrangements, Directive (EU) 2018/1972 (85) establishing the European Electronic Communications Code, Regulation (EC) No 1008/2008 (86) on air services, Directive 2009/72/EC (87) concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity and repealing Directive 2003/54/EC, or Directive 2009/73/EC (88) concerning common rules for the internal market in natural gas and repealing Directive 2003/55/EC (89). In addition, rules in the area of judicial cooperation in civil matters, for instance on the applicable law (90) and jurisdiction (91) and procedural rules, such as on small claims (92) or on the European Payment Order (93) may apply in cases involving unfair contract terms. Some sector-specific acts explicitly clarify that they are without prejudice to the UCTD. Examples are Directive 2009/72/EC (94), Directive 2009/73/EC (95), Directive 2014/17/EU (96) and Directive (EU) 2018/1972 (97). Because of Article 1(2) UCTD, which is discussed in Section 1.2.3, contract terms that reflect mandatory provisions, including those set out in sector-specific legislation, or provisions of international conventions are excluded from the scope of the UCTD. Otherwise, where sector-specific legislation was adopted after the adoption of the UCTD, one will have to consider that such legislation can exclude the application of the UCTD only insofar it provides so explicitly (98). This will normally not be the case (99), so that the UCTD will generally apply in addition to sector-specific rules. Where other EU provisions apply in addition to the UCTD, one will, in general, favour an interpretation that preserves as much as possible the effet utile of the UCTD and of a potentially conflicting provision. For instance, rules of procedure should not jeopardise the effectiveness of the protection against unfair contract terms under the UCTD. Other EU provisions may have to be taken into account when assessing the transparency and unfairness of contract terms under the UCTD. For instance, the fact that a seller or supplier resorted to unfair commercial practices within the meaning of Directive 2005/29/EC (100) may be an element in the assessment of the unfairness of individual contract terms (101). At the same time, such a finding has no direct effect on the assessment of the validity of the contract from the point of view of Article 6(1) of the UCTD (102). The relationship between sector-specific rules and the UCTD with particular regard to transparency/pre-contractual information requirements (103) or the compulsory content of contracts (104) is discussed below in Section 3.3.2.

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Source: EUR-Lex (Cellar) · retrieved 2026-09-07