Tag: consumer protection

Lawmakers were unsatisfied by the "vague" answers given by Croatia's commissioner candidate, after a three-hour grilling in the European Parliament.

The European Commission has moved to reduce the number of hazardous products entering the EU market with new regulatory proposals.

European Commissioner Michel Barnier proposed today (3 July) new rules to dismantle shoddy practices amongst investment and insurance brokers in the financial sector, another building block in the EU's implementation of the global financial regulatory reform agreed by the G20.

European consumers are being flooded with confusing, misleading and corporate-friendly product information about carbon footprints, according to a new report by the European consumer rights watchdog for standardisation.

Consumers and businesses alike should reap the benefits of new consumer rights legislation in Europe, with years of negotiations set to conclude with the approval by the European Parliament on Thursday (23 June) of the EU's Consumer Rights Directive.  

Cucumbers imported from Spain may be the source of an E. coli bacteria outbreak that Germany says has killed four people and affected at least 200 more, European health officials said yesterday (26 May).

An updated version of the EU's Consumer Rights Directive was approved by the European Parliament's internal market committee yesterday (1 February). But socialist MEPs rejected the text and accused their centre-right colleagues of "selling off" the rights of European consumers, suggesting that further battles lie ahead before the legislation becomes law.  

Long-awaited EU legislation aimed at informing consumers about the nutritional content of foods may be sidelined, consumer groups have warned, leading to potentially misleading information.

Brussels lacks a "clear vision or strategy" on consumer rights legislation, Ursula Pachl, deputy director-general of European consumer group BEUC, told EurActiv in an interview. 

The EU is set to draft a definition of energy poverty in a bid to put consumers on the bloc's energy policy agenda.

Record numbers of dangerous goods were removed from EU shelves last year, Health and Consumer Policy Commissioner John Dalli said yesterday (15 April), presenting the European Commission's annual report on product safety in Brussels. But consumer organisations said far too many dangerous products were slipping through the net and onto the market place.

Barriers to shopping online across borders must be eliminated if the EU's internal market is to be completed, Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva said yesterday (5 November), presenting her vision for the future European consumer policy.

More than half of European websites selling electronic goods do not respect EU rules, providing false or misleading information to online shoppers regarding prices, consumer rights or contacts details of sellers, according to a survey conducted by the European Commission.

Finding reliable information about products on the European market which currently contain nanomaterials is becoming increasingly difficult, according to high-level experts addressing a meeting of consumer groups from the EU and US.

The European Commission this week launched a new online guide setting out the digital rights that consumers enjoy under EU law.

As electricity and gas markets slowly open up to competition, EU countries with fixed pricing policies are coming under growing pressure to let market forces decide prices. But opponents point to the potentially high social consequences of the measure.

Communication is key if consumers are to become well-informed experts and use their power to make business behave, Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva told EurActiv in an exclusive interview.

The European Commission yesterday (27 November) opened a public consultation to consider ways of introducing a collective redress system for victims of illegal commercial practices. But consumer groups accused the EU executive of "lacking ambition".

Business representatives broadly supported a directive on consumer rights unveiled by Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva on Wednesday (8 September), hailing the proposals as 'good news'. But consumer groups are arguing that the text should go further.

The EU should concentrate on stimulating the mobility of accounts across borders instead of over-regulating national retail banking markets, argues Stefan Schäfer in a Deutsche Bank Research paper.

The European Parliament yesterday backed Commission plans to provide EU citizens with a collective redress mechanism for the settlement of cross-border consumer complaints in what appears to be a watered-down version of US-style class action lawsuits.

One in three consumers using websites to book an airline ticket is still "confused" and being "misled and sometimes ripped off," lamented EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva, threatening legal action if they fail to clean up their act.

The Commission has announced a number of in-depth sectoral investigations to track "competition killers" depriving consumers of choice and best prices. The first to go under Commission scrutiny are the retail banking and insurance industries.

Consumer Affairs Commissioner Meglena Kuneva will today (5 December) take part in an online chat with European citizens to discuss product safety, with toys a particular concern for consumers ahead of the Christmas period.