The European Consumers' Organisation (BEUC) and BETTER FINANCE published on Tuesday 16 June a joint letter to the European Parliament and the Croatian Presidency of the EU Council calling for a collective redress mechanism in the EU that does not exclude European citizens as financial consumers and individual investors and allows them to obtain compensation for damages.
These organisations are supported by the final report published on 10 June by the High-Level Forum on the Future of the Union of Financial Markets, which calls on the co-legislators not to discriminate against individual direct investments by small investors in equity and fixed-income instruments and to include them in the scope (Annex I) of the Directive subject to inter-institutional negotiations.
“This is crucial in the area of financial services where complex products have a serious impact on the quality of life of active and retired citizens. Moreover, due to the lack of an effective redress mechanism many financial consumers as investors are de facto unable to exercise their rights”, write the signatories.
In their view, in order to ensure a high level of consumer protection, citizens, as direct or indirect investors, should have access to collective mechanisms that are flexible, effective and can be used by representative consumer organisations at local and cross-border level. (Original version in French by Aminata Niang)