On Wednesday 19 November, the European Commission presented its 2030 Agenda for consumers. With key initiatives such as the ‘Digital Fairness Act’, which will aim to combat misleading commercial practices, already expected in 2026, the Commission wants to boost consumer confidence, guarantee legal clarity, consolidate the application of the law and simplify administrative procedures for businesses, explained European Commissioner Michael McGrath.
While European consumers enjoy some of the highest levels of protection in the world, the legal framework needs to be adapted to keep pace with a rapidly changing environment, marked by the rising cost of living, evolving commercial practices, particularly online, and the boom in e-commerce, the Commission also explains.
The institution will work on four priority areas:
- a plan to remove cross-border barriers and boost opportunities for business, including an evaluation of the Geo-blocking Regulation to determine whether it has achieved its objective of eliminating unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination;
- digital fairness and online consumer protection with the ‘Digital Fairness Act’ (DFA), designed to combat practices such as manipulation techniques, addictive features and abusive personalisation. Particular attention will be paid to protecting children online. A legislative proposal is expected by the end of 2026;
- promoting sustainable consumption: the Commission is promising more action against greenwashing and a wider range of sustainable goods;
- effective enforcement and redress: by 2026, the Commission will “prioritise the review of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation to strengthen enforcement, protect consumers from market players who do not respect the rules, and shield compliant businesses from unfair competition”. It will assess the need to centralise control powers in certain cases.
With regard to the DFA, the Commission explains that the Digital Services Act (DSA) already addresses several aspects of the difficulties that consumers can encounter online. But “problematic commercial practices concern all types of traders, including those not falling under the scope of the Digital Services Act, such as e-commerce websites and digital services that are not based on content intermediation”.
The DFA will also tackle “problematic practices by influencers [...] and problematic features in digital products such as social media, video games and e-commerce”.
The DFA will be “based on the Digital Fairness Fitness Check”, published in October 2024 (see EUROPE 13497/6), explained the Commissioner, when asked about the link with the DSA.
The DFA will be a “consumer dossier with simplification measures”; it will tackle “broad areas also covered by the reform of the consumer protection regulation, but the dossiers will be separate”, said the Commissioner.
Link to documents: https://aeur.eu/f/jit (Original version in French by Solenn Paulic)