On Friday 13 November the European Commission launched the new consumer agenda to empower European consumers to play an active role in the green and digital transitions.The Agenda also addresses how to increase consumer protection and resilience during and after the COVID-19 pandemic, which brought significant challenges affecting the daily lives of consumers. More concretely, the Agenda puts forward priorities and key action points to be taken in the next 5 years together with Member States at European and national levels. This will, among other things, include a new legal proposal aiming to provide better information on sustainability to consumers, adapting existing legislation to the digital transformation as well as an action plan on product safety with China
Vice-President for Values and Transparency, Věra Jourová, said: “We want to empower consumers to play their role in the green and digital transitions. At the same time we must ensure that our rules to protect consumer rights remain up to speed with today's digital reality – especially through vigorous enforcement and increased responsibility of online platforms.”
Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, said: “European consumers are at the core of a global change. Their actions can make a significant difference. Consumers need to be empowered to make sustainable choices and be reassured that their* rights will be protected in all circumstances. The new Agenda introduces measures that will promote a fair digital and green society, taking into account that consumer behaviour transcends borders of individual Member States.”
The New Consumer Agenda presents a vision for EU consumer policy from 2020 to 2025 focusing on five key priority areas: green transition, digital transformation, effective enforcement of consumer rights, specific needs of certain consumer groups and international cooperation.
In the area of green transmission the Commission aims to ensure that sustainable products are available to consumers on the EU market and that consumers have better information to be able to make an informed choice. Next year, the Commission will present a proposal to equip consumers with better information on the sustainability of products and to fight practices, such as greenwashing or early obsolescence.
The Commission will come forward with the initiatives announced in the agenda and looks forward to a wide-ranging dialogue with all interested parties on the priorities and actions as well as the cooperation methods to promote consumer protection together in the years ahead.
