EC lays the ground work for future action in EU consumer law

30 May 2017 02:02 PM

Yesterday, the European Commission presents an analysis of EU consumer and marketing rules. This report will serve as a basis for further improving the legal framework for consumers and businesses.

The results show that while European consumers already benefit from strong consumer rights, there is room for improvement for instance when it comes to enforcing these rights or making them fit for the digital age. An update of the rules should also ensure more legal clarity for businesses operating cross-border.

VÄ›ra Jourová, EU Commissioner for Justice and Consumers said: "European consumers are amongst the best protected in the world. They benefit from strong consumer rights whether they buy in their own country or cross-border. We need to make sure that these rights can also be properly enforced and are brought up-to-speed with the digital age. With the upcoming proposals we will make sure these rights become a reality online and offline. ”

EU consumer rules have contributed to improving consumer confidence: in 2016, nearly 6 in 10 consumers (58%) felt they are well protected when buying something online from another Member State, compared to only one in ten (10%) in 2003. 7 in 10 people reported that they have benefitted from the right to a free-of-charge minimum two year guarantee for goods.

Issues identified

The Commission analysis identifies the following issues that should be addressed:

How will the Commission take this forward?

The Commission will examine how to follow up in the following areas of EU Consumer rules:

Next steps

To examine the opportunity for possible changes in legislation, the Commission will in 2017:

Ongoing Commission action

The Commission is already working on updating some of the Consumer rules:

The Commission updated its guidance on the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, which is the legal basis for many coordinated consumer rights enforcement actions at EU level.

The Commission proposed modern digital contract rules (IP/15/6264), which, once adopted, will provide clear rules to better protect consumer when they buy digital content. It will also align the common rules regarding remedies.

Regarding better enforcement, the Commission made a proposal to strengthen the cooperation between national consumer protection bodies (CPC) and the Commission (IP/16/1887). 

Background

As part of the Commission's Regulatory Fitness and Performance (REFIT) programme, the Commission regularly reviews EU laws to identify excessive regulatory burdens, overlaps, gaps, inconsistencies and/or obsolete measures which may have appeared over time.

In this framework, the Commission assessed six horizontal consumer and marketing directives: the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive (UCPD), the Sales and Guarantees Directive, the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, the Price Indication Directive, the Misleading and Comparative Advertising Directive, the Injunctions Directive. The analysis consisted of a survey of more than 23 000 consumers from across the EU, mystery shopping exercises, interviews with national consumer bodies (organisations, business associations, authorities, ministries) and behavioural experiments

In parallel and linked to the Fitness Check, the Commission carried out an evaluation of the Consumer Rights Directive as required by its Article 30.

For more information

Factsheet: EU consumer law

Executive summary of the Fitness Check report

Executive summary of the evaluation of the Consumer Rights Directive

The full reports and the supporting external studies published yesterday are available here

EU consumer rights and law

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