A European Union for consumers

This edition of Consumer Policy Review (CPR) focuses on some of the issues

Too often, the debates that seem to convulse the EU - if only alas in the political sense - concern the institutional issues of Treaties, Constitutions, voting rights, legal competences and subsidiarity. Stripped of their high-sounding terminology, however, these are just the EU equivalent of the good old-fashioned 'who does what' demarcation disputes that bedevilled the British car industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The Morris Marina is not perhaps an encouraging parallel.

Feeling unloved, and rebuffed by referendum votes in France and Denmark, too many in the EU have fallen back on the in-denial mantra of defeated UK political parties on the day after polling day: 'We had the right policies but we failed to get our message across'. Communications are being improved, and EU dialogue with non-governmental organisations is being stepped up.

Both may be desirable, but they largely miss the point. The EU does indeed have a real problem with its long-term inability to communicate its purpose in comprehensible terms but, as Margot Wallstrom, the Commissioner responsible for the European Commission's communication strategy, has herself noted, 'communication cannot replace bad policy'.

The urgent task is to deliver effective policies that turn EU aims into tangible benefits for Europe's citizens, including as consumers. To borrow the succinct advice of Bill Clinton's campaign advisor, James Carville, when it comes to identifying the key election issue, 'It's the economy, stupid'.

To succeed, efficient economic markets require confident consumers. This issue of CPR looks at some of the areas where Europe is and is not delivering for consumers, and where consumer confidence needs to be improved.

Sarah Kaye of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) shows how an EU directive on cross-border injunctions has enabled the OFT to act against traders based elsewhere in the EU who are cheating UK consumers. But there is also a concern that the drive to harmonise EU consumer policy may be undermining consumer protection. Geraint Howells and Christian Twigg-Flesner question the assumptions behind the new Unfair Commercial Practices Directive and criticise the trend towards maximum, rather than minimum, EU levels of consumer protection.

The interests of consumers at the EU level, of course, extend well beyond consumer protection. Richard Stein looks at the obstacles placed in the way of those trying to exercise their rights under EU law to obtain medical treatment in other Member States, where its own health service cannot do so within a reasonable time. Mick McAteer argues that policy-making in EU financial services needs to be overhauled if the single market in retail financial services is really going to benefit consumers.

A key driver of the European single market is competition policy. In separate articles, Phil Evans and Eugene Buttigieg underline the synergy between consumer and competition policies. They show how competition policy could be improved and how it might help to reconnect Europe with its citizens, and discuss the role that consumer organisations could play, including through an EU 'super-complaints' procedure to enable consumer organisations formally to raise issues of unfair practices and lack of competition with the European Commission.

These issues have a special urgency for the ten1 countries that joined the EU in 2004, as they try to turn newly-implemented EU legislation into rights that consumers can actually exercise. As Breda Kutin of the Slovenian Consumers' Association discusses, this poses enormous challenges to the new Member States with their relatively small consumer organisations, working in economies that are in a rapid state of transition.

This edition of CPR provides only a snapshot of a few of the EU policies that affect consumers. It does not for example look at Europe's external trade policies, food safety and nutrition or intellectual property - all issues of concern.

It also coincides with the UK's Presidency and important discussions on the EU's new consumer and health strategy. But the kind of issues that it raises will be around for a lot longer, and they need to be addressed.