Brussels, 16/03/2006 (Agence Europe) - Celebrations for World Consumer Day on 15 March provided Consumer Protection Commissioner Markos Kyprianou with the opportunity to stress the key role played by the Commission in ensuring that the rights of consumers, namely revising the Community acquis to make them more coherent and to shift from consumer protection to consumer empowerment. In a declaration published on Wednesday, the Commissioner declared, “There are now 450 million consumers in Europe. Their expenditure represents over half of EU GDP. They are key to economic growth and creating jobs. And yet there is an EU-wide lack of consumer confidence when it comes to cross-border transactions. A solid legislative framework has to be complemented with enhanced consumer information and education at EU level”.
Questioned by the press about concerns of the European Consumers Organisation (BEUC) over planned cuts in the EU's financial perspectives would reduce the amount for consumer policy by four, Mr Kyprianou's spokesperson replied that, “We are aware of the criticism. The European Commission has written to the Parliament to request additional funds for the two sectors: health - consumer protection, and education, so that the budgetary authority takes into account discussions on financial perspectives”.
In the knowledge that the European Parliament environment committee will be reaching a decision in second reading on 21 March on the draft regulation on nutritional and health allegations relating to food, the BEUC chose the 15 March to submit it s “Black Book on Health allegations' to Commissioner Kyprianou, which denounced the numerous fantasist and misleading commercial allegations made by some foods on their supposed health benefits. The BEUC hopes that that this initiative will encourage Commissioner Kyprianou to remain firm in the defence of the food nutrition profile concepts, allegation authorisation procedures and encourage MEPs to re-establish “these two essential elements” in the text that the Parliament removed during its first reading vote in May 2005 (EUROPE 8941). BEUC underlines that, “BEUC research amongst 3000 consumers shows that more than 70 % want a healthy diet yet most rely on marketing claims when choosing what food to buy. Consumers see claims as an easy, trustworthy and quick way to identify healthy foods. But current claims are not a good guide to healthy choices. Too often they stress only one aspect of a product -If the proposal was adopted without nutrient profiles, a so-called “fat free” yoghurt would still be promoted as 'fat free' if it contained 100g of sugar”.