Explanatory Memorandum to COM(2011)707 - Consumer programme 2014-2020 - Main contents
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| dossier | COM(2011)707 - Consumer programme 2014-2020. |
|---|---|
| source | COM(2011)707  |
| date | 09-11-2011 |
The Europe 2020 Strategy calls for 'citizens to be empowered to play a full role in the single market', which 'requires strengthening their ability and confidence to buy goods and services cross-border'.
It has become more and more apparent that at a time when Europe needs new sources of growth, consumer policy is one area which can make a telling contribution to meeting the Europe 2020 objectives. In Europe there are 500 million consumers and consumer expenditure amounts to 56% of EU GDP. The more consumers are able to make informed decisions, the greater the impact they can have on strengthening the Single Market and stimulating growth. Empowered consumers that are well-protected and able to benefit from the Single Market can thus drive innovation and growth by demanding value, quality and service. The businesses which respond will be the best-placed to cope with the pressures of the global market.
Empowerment is not only a question of consumer rights but of building an overall environment that enables consumers to make use of those rights and benefit from them. It means building a framework wherein consumers can rely on the basic premise that safety is assured and that tools are in place to detect failings in standards and practices and to address them effectively across Europe. It means building an environment where consumers through education, information and awareness know how to navigate the Single Market to benefit from the best offers on products and services. Finally empowerment requires that consumers can confidently exercise their EU rights across Europe and that, when something goes wrong, they can count both on the effective enforcement of those rights and on easy access to efficient redress.
The Communication A budget for Europe 2020 i of 29 June 2011 allocated EUR 175 millions (in constant 2011 prices) to the Consumer Programme for the period 2014-2020.
In this context, this proposal aims at establishing a Consumer Programme for the period 2014-2020, as a successor to the 2007-2013 Programme of Community Action in the field of consumer policy.
The new Consumer Programme will support the general objective of future consumer policy placing the empowered consumer at the centre of the Single Market. European consumer policy supports and complements national policy by seeking to ensure that EU citizens can fully reap the benefits of the Single Market and that in so doing, their safety and economic interests are properly protected.
Leveraging the vast economic force of consumer expenditure (which represents 56% of EU GDP) will make an important contribution to meeting the EU objective of reigniting growth.
· General context
The main problems to be addressed through the funding of actions under the new Programme are grouped in the following four categories:
i) Safety: differences between Member States in enforcing product safety legislation, the presence of unsafe products on the Single Market; risks linked to the globalisation of the production chain; services safety; lack of an adequate coordination structure at EU level to ensure the best value of EU co-financing.
ii) Information and education: lack of robust and good quality data and analysis on the functioning of the Single Market for consumers; insufficient capacity of consumer organisations, including lack of resources and expertise, notably in the new Member States; lack of transparent, comparable, reliable and user-friendly information for consumers, particularly for cross-border cases; poor knowledge and understanding of key consumer rights and protection measures by consumers and retailers alike; inadequacy of current EU consumer education tools, especially with regards to the developments in the digital environment.
iii) Rights and redress: sub-optimal protection of consumer rights, in particular in cross-border situations; need to further improve the integration of consumer interests in EU policies; problems faced by consumers when trying to secure redress, notably cross-border.
iv) Enforcement: CPC Network (network of national enforcement authorities) not used to its full potential; low awareness about ECC-Net (network of European Consumer Centres) among consumers and need to strengthen its effectiveness.
At the same time, the new Programme, with its four priorities of Safety, Information and education, Rights and redress, and Enforcement (SIRE), needs to take into account new societal challenges which have grown in importance in recent years. They include: the increased complexity of consumer decision-making, the need to move towards more sustainable patterns of consumption, the opportunities and threats that digitalisation brings, an increase in social exclusion and the number of vulnerable consumers and an ageing population.
· The focus of actions under the Consumer Programme
While the problems to be tackled by consumer policy are wide ranging, the relatively small size of the Consumer Programme means that actions to be financed under it have to be targeted on areas where intervention at EU level can make a difference and add value. The selected areas for actions are of three kinds:
i) Actions corresponding to legal obligations imposed by the Treaty and the existing EU acquis in the field of consumer protection on the EU and Member States:
– Financing the maintenance and proper functioning of the RAPEX i Network, of the CPC Network of enforcement authorities and of the cosmetics databases.
ii) Actions which are not or could not be undertaken at national level because of their EU-level character:
– Assisting consumers on cross-border issues by:
- co-financing the operation of the Network of European Consumer Centres (ECCs). National authorities or consumer organisations are usually not in a position to provide advice and support to consumers on cross-border issues;
- supporting the development of a Union-wide on-line dispute resolution system dealing also with cross-border cases;
– Developing cooperation with international partners to deal with the impact of the globalisation of the production chain on product safety;
– Supporting the production of EU-level comparable consumer markets data for benchmarking between Member States and input into EU-level policy-making;
– Ensuring EU-level representation of consumer interests by financially supporting EU-level consumer organisations.
iii) Actions complementing and enhancing the efficiency of measures undertaken at national level:
– Coordination and co-financing of joint actions in the field of product safety and of consumer rights enforcement;
– Supporting awareness-raising campaigns on consumer issues with Member States and other stakeholders and working with intermediaries to contribute to the provisions of clear, transparent and reliable information to consumers;
– Supporting the training of national consumer organisations, which would be much more costly at national level without economy of scale;
– Providing a platform for exchange and sharing of good practices in the field of consumer education.
· Objectives of the proposal
The aim of the Consumer Programme is to support the policy objective of placing the empowered consumer at the centre of the Single Market. The Programme will do so by contributing to protecting the health, safety and economic interests of consumers, as well as to promoting their right to information, education and to organise themselves in order to safeguard their interests. The Programme will complement, support and monitor the policies of Member States.
The actions will support the following four specific objectives:
i) Safety: to consolidate and enhance product Safety through effective market surveillance throughout the EU;
ii) Information and education: to improve consumers' education, information and awareness of their rights, to develop the evidence base for consumer policy and to provide support to consumer organisations.
iii) Rights and redress: to consolidate consumer rights in particular through regulatory action and improving access to redress including alternative dispute resolution.
iv) Enforcement: to support enforcement of consumer rights by strengthening cooperation between national enforcement bodies and by supporting consumers with advice.
These objectives support the objectives of Europe 2020 as regards growth and competitiveness. They will integrate specific Europe 2020 concerns on digital agenda (ensure that digitalisation actually leads to increased consumer welfare), sustainable growth (moving towards more sustainable patterns of consumption), social inclusion (taking into account the specific situation of vulnerable consumers and the need of an ageing population), smart regulation (consumer market monitoring to help in designing smart and targeted regulations).
Contents
· Consultation of interested parties
A mid-term evaluation of the current legal base, the Programme of Community action in the field of consumer policy (2007-2013), was conducted between May 2010 and February 2011[3]. In this context, the main stakeholders (Member States national authorities involved in consumer policies, EU and national consumer organisations and business) were consulted on the actions conducted under the current Programme.
The evaluation highlighted the added value of the Programme, despite the fact that European consumer policy is a relatively new field and that the level of EU funding under the Programme is relatively small. It underlined that actions under the Strategy and Programmes contribute to the Europe 2020 objectives of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth.
In particular, the results were globally positive with regard to the relevance of the objectives of the Programme, its impacts and added-value. The evaluation also concluded that the Programme will have long-term effects on consumer protection. National authorities generally confirmed that the Strategy and Programme were complementary to national consumer policies. However, the evaluation concluded that emerging social and environmental challenges were only partly addressed by the current Strategy and Programme.
In addition, subsequent discussions with stakeholders have taken place in the course of preparing the new Consumer Programme, notably at the 2011 Consumer Summit in April 2011 and in the context of the consumer networks: the Consumer Policy Network (CPN) of national authorities, the Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) of national enforcement authorities and the European Consumer Consultative Group (ECCG), composed of European and national consumer organisations.
Contributions from the three main horizontal business organisations (BusinessEurope, UEAPME and EuroCommerce) were also requested.
Despite differences in focus, the contributions from national authorities and consumer organisations were generally supportive of the priority issues proposed by DG Sanco relevant to the Programme. Business organisations generally agreed with the priorities proposed by the Commission, stressing that the right balance should be struck between consumer protection and competitiveness.
In addition, the European Parliament has in recent years published a series of reports directly relevant to the activities conducted under the Programme[4].
· Impact assessment
An impact assessment was conducted between February and July 2011 by the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers. It considered four options:
- Option 0 corresponds to the absolute minimum actions to be financed resulting from the legal obligations imposed by the Treaty and the existing EU acquis in the field of consumer protection.
- Option 1 corresponds to the baseline scenario. Under this option, the majority of actions conducted under the 2007-2013 Programme are pursued, with some adaptation. Some actions are substantially reduced or no longer implemented because they are no longer relevant, while some new actions are launched with a limited level of ambition (for instance on redress). It corresponds to a budget equal to or lower than the one provided under the current Programme.
- Option 2 corresponds to a more ambitious approach in line with Commission priorities (Europe 2020, Single Market Act) and the on-going reflection on the future of consumer policy[5]. The budget under this option is around EUR 25 millions annually.
- Option 3 would require a budget increase compared to the current Programme for some additional actions such as: the development of a public consumer product safety database; redress: setting up a fund to support the financing of cross-border redress actions.
The impact assessment has concluded that option 2 is the best option from a cost/benefit point of view. The budget under this option would be around 25 millions euro annually, which is in line with the proposed budget allocation for the consumer programme in the Communication A Budget for Europe 2020 of June 2011.
· Simplification of the funding process
The funding process will be simplified in particular through the use of partnership agreements and the support given to an EU-level coordination body for market surveillance relating to safety[6].
The possibility of using lump sums whenever possible will be examined so as to reduce the administrative burden.
Should the Commission decide to use an executive agency for the implementation of the Consumer Programme, this would also contribute to the streamlining of procedures in funding process.
· Added-value of the actions
The Programme will support the objectives of future consumer policy putting EU consumers at the centre of the Single Market. The added-value of the actions under the four specific objectives is summarised below.
In the field of safety, actions at EU level and cooperation through the General Product Safety Directive (GPSD) network delivers better results than a series of individual actions by Member States since it fills information gaps, including using information collected by other countries, and avoids disparities in the Single Market.
Consumer market monitoring helps to identify weaknesses in national markets and Single Market obstacles that could be removed with reforms improving innovation and competition. In general, the data are designed to be sufficiently robust and representative to be used not only at EU but also at national level, thereby delivering some EU-scale efficiency gains and enabling Member States' benchmarking.
Support for strong and coherent representation from the consumer movement at EU level contributes to the provision of consolidated consumer input into EU policy-making, EU institutions and EU-level dialogues. It also ensures direct empowerment of and support for particularly weak organisations in the new Member States. Capacity-building actions for national consumer organisations supports the development of transnational networks between participants, including for mentoring and peer review.
EU consumer information and education initiatives increase consumer knowledge and confidence in cross-border transactions, thus supporting the completion of the Single Market. They facilitate best practice sharing between Member States and will contribute to the creation of a coherent and authoritative source of information/education at EU level.
Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) will offer a cheap, rapid and easy way of getting redress throughout the EU, ensuring a level playing field. ADR is a key action in the Single Market Act. The development of a Union-wide on-line dispute resolution system will lead to a co-ordinated approach, creating economies of scales and synergies.
The European Consumer Centres' network contributes to the completion of the Single Market by providing advice and support to consumers on cross-border issues, which national authorities and consumer organisations are most often not in a position to do. Coordinated joint enforcement actions with the Consumer Protection Cooperation (CPC) Network of national enforcement authorities such as the sweeps are a very efficient way to tackle issues which have a cross-border EU dimension.
The proposal is based on Article 169 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU). Measures adopted under Article 169 TFEU should have as their object the promotion of consumer interests and a high level of consumer protection. This proposal undertakes to financially support EU and Member State actions aiming at protection of consumers' safety, improvement of their access to information, and further strengthening of their rights. The choice of Article 169 TFEU as a legal basis is thus justified both by the objective and the content of the proposal. This proposal is to be adopted in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and after consulting the European Economic and Social Committee.
The financial appropriations for implementing the Programme over the period from 1 January 2014 to 31 December 2020 will amount to EUR 197 millions in current prices. This corresponds to the proposed budget allocation for the consumer programme in the Communication A Budget for Europe 2020 of June 2011.