Placing consumers at the heart of the Single Market
Empowering consumers to make better informed choices and protecting citizens from unsafe products were among the issues addressed by MEPs in a resolution adopted by the Plenary on Tuesday to give Parliament's inputs for a new strategy for consumer policy.
Consumer expenditure generates more than half of EU GDP and EU citizens therefore have a crucial role to play as consumers in achieving the EU 2020 goals of smart, inclusive and sustainable growth.
The non-binding resolution welcomes the Commission's initiative to launch a Consumer Agenda which would function as an umbrella strategy for all initiatives in the consumer field 2014 - 2020 and place "consumers at the heart of the Single Market". The Commission is expected to present its proposal early next year.
"We need to deal with the problems citizens and consumers face. We need to try to reduce inequalities between consumers and we need to make sure they can exercise their rights. I am thinking in particular here about e-commerce, alternative dispute resolution and making sure that products are high quality and safe", Parliament's rapporteur Kyriacos Triantaphyllides (GUE, CY) said in the debate prior to the vote.
Easy access to the right information
The resolution underlines the need to empower consumers by providing them with "useful, targeted and understandable information" for example through the use of unit price indications, price comparison websites and effective product labelling.
MEPs also call on the Commission and Member States to provide adequate support and capacity building to consumer organisations in each Member State, with a view to strengthen their role and means, thereby enhancing consumer empowerment. MEPs also insist that efforts to improve consumer education are stepped up and call for more accessible and more effective redress mechanisms, such as alternative dispute resolution, collective redress or online dispute resolution to empower consumers throughout the EU.
Consumer protection and product safety
The general level of safety of consumer products in the EU, especially in the framework of the forthcoming revision of the General product safety directive urgently needs to be increased, MEPs stress.
They also call on the Commission, together with the responsible EU agencies, to further look into the impact of chemicals on consumer's health, antibiotic resistance and nanotechnologies in relation to existing, relevant EU legislation in those fields.
The Plenary adopted an alternative motion for a resolution tabled by the GUE group. The alternative resolution brings two changes to the report that was adopted by the IMCO Committee in October to point out the need to protect children against "misleading advertising" and also mention "the social dimension" of consumer policies.
The report was adopted by a raise of hands.
Next steps
The Commission is expected to present the new Consumer Agenda in May 2012 as a follow up to the 2007- 2013 EU Consumer Strategy.
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