E-basket bill to head to parliament ‘as soon as possible’

The goal is to get the ‘e-basket’ law on goods’ pricing approved by parliament as soon as possible, opposition Akel MP Costas Costa said on Tuesday, following the House commerce committee meeting.

During Tuesday’s session, an article-by-article discussion was concluded on the ‘e-basket’ bill, with the members of the committee deciding to increase the turnover limit for company participation in the project from €2 million to €5 million.

MPs also decided to include the products on the platform with their barcode and not just with the brand of each.

“In a climate of consensus, we have unanimously decided in the next session to revisit these changes that we proposed today,” Costa said.

He added that the aim is for the bill on the e-basket to proceed as quickly as possible to the plenary before parliament begins debating the budget.

Costa said that they have also decided at this stage to only include supermarkets in the e-basket platform, as recommended by the commerce ministry, and to not extend it to fruit shops, bakeries and kiosks, even if they sell similar products to the ones in the supermarket.

Also, regarding the products that will be included in the application, he said that it was decided not to include all products, as this would mean tens of thousands of tags and would cause problems.

He added that e-basket will not be an issue for inflation, and it will not affect the bottom line of products, as it is just a tool for the public to compare.