Brussels, 14/01/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 14 January in Strasbourg, the European Parliament approved the 2014-2020 Consumers programme, which will have a budget of €189 million to ensure a high level of consumer protection, enhance consumer rights in the single market, encourage consumer confidence and stimulate growth. Following the line of rapporteur, Robert Rochefort (ALDE, France), the European Parliament gave its formal and overwhelming approval (630 votes to 42, with 12 abstentions) to the outcome of the trialogue negotiations on the draft regulation to establish a financial framework for EU action on consumer policy over the course of the next seven years.
The rapporteur was delighted that this programme is geared towards the future and that, “for 500 million European consumers, 200 million less in 2014-2020 is a modest amount but it is a significant responsibility because consumption accounts for 50% of the EU's GDP. We will be strengthening confidence in the markets. Given the limited resources, the programme will not be able to achieve everything. We will be vigilant. Defending consumers' interests will be the objective of all the other policies - transport, energy and health. It will also depend on member states, because consumer policy is above all a national matter, co-operation with non-EU countries and the level of cover there”.
The text, as approved, contains three major steps forward, in his opinion: (1) it strengthens safety through the traceability of products and the transparency of markets, the education of consumers through a more effective use of the possibilities offered by new technology, and it facilitates appeals by pushing extrajudicial settlement of disputes, including through an online platform; (2) it strengthens the type of support to actors on the ground like European consumer centres; (3) it takes account of the crisis, of the digital age and of the growing complexity of choices to be made by consumers by encouraging the creation of websites for comparison not only of prices, but also of the quality of services.
A revision clause in the programme provides, in September 2017, for an evaluation report to be presented by the European Commission in order, if necessary, to re-establish the objectives and the missions of the programmes - through a legislative proposal, should this be the case.
José Manuel Fernandes (EPP, Portugal), the rapporteur for the budgets committee opinion, was delighted that the programme “places the consumer at the centre of the single market, that is puts the emphasis on informing consumers about their rights and the best way to exercise these, and that it contains a series of statistical indicators for a better assessment of the single market and the way it works”.
Speaking to the MEPs, European Commissioner for Consumer Policy Neven Mimica hailed “the positive conclusion of the negotiations on this programme, which has indeed been given a modest budget but which will act as a catalyst in protecting consumers by financing key measures of the European consumer's agenda”. The budgetary envelope represents a reduction of only 4% in comparison with the initial envelope (€197 million), he stated.
Mimica hailed the solution found for managing the programme which “recognises the prerogatives of the Parliament but guarantees that the programme will be manageable”. The priority is to implement the programme. “The technical work has started at the European Commission while waiting for the formal adoption and legal basis next March”, he said.
The Commission communication of 22 May 2012 - “A European consumer agenda: boosting confidence and growth” - defines a strategic framework for EU consumer policy for the future, by supporting the interests of consumers in all EU policies. This agenda aims to create a strategy through which political action will support consumers effectively and efficiently throughout their lives, through product safety and the safety of services available to them, through informing them and educating them, through supporting organisations that represent them, through strengthening their rights, their access to justice and to ways to appeal, and through the respect of the legislation. The Parliament recalls this in the resolution that it adopted. (AN/transl.fl)