The European Commission launched the ‘New Consumer Agenda’ on Friday 13 November, following a public consultation held in June 2020. This had highlighted the priorities of consumers and the need for a response to the problems associated with the Covid-19 crisis. Online scams have, for example, increased drastically during the crisis. Consumer habits have also changed, and the Commission is wondering whether these new behaviours will continue.
The programme proposes five priorities for the next 5 years: ecological transition, digital transformation, implementation of consumer rights, vulnerability of certain consumers and international cooperation. For each of these, the Commission has identified and listed aspects on which it will have to work. For example, tackling planned obsolescence, waste and transparency of information provided by vendors.
The Commission intends to put this agenda into effect from 2021 with a series of legislative proposals. It provides, for example, for a proposal on artificial intelligence and its possible dangers. On 13 November, the European Commissioner for Transparency, Vera Jourova, recalled the importance of providing a framework for this new technology and assured that the Commission had “great ambitions” in this area. She also said that further information on this subject would be available as part of the future legislative package on digital services, due to be published in the coming weeks.
See the New Consumer Agenda: https://bit.ly/36Cw4Ck (Original version in French by Léa Marchal)