What the Commission is doing
The New Consumer Agenda adopted in November 2020 presents a vision for EU consumer policy from 2020 to 2025 focusing on five key priority areas:
- The green transition
- The digital transformation
- Effective enforcement of consumer rights
- Specific needs of certain consumer groups; and
- International cooperation
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 about the New Consumer Agenda
Objectives
- 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
- Promote repair and encourage more sustainable and “circular” products
- Tackle online commercial practices that disregard consumers' right to make an informed choice, abuse their behavioural biases or distort their decision-making processes, such as dark patterns and hidden advertising
- Adapt current rules to the ongoing digitalisation and the increase of connected products
- Assist Member States in the timely implementation and enforcement of consumer law, including through the Consumer Protection Cooperation network
- Support national authorities to tackle illegal online commercial practices and identify unsafe products
- Safeguard certain groups of consumers, such as children, older people or those with disabilities, from vulnerable situations.
- Develop an Action Plan with China in 2021 to enhance the safety of products sold online
- Develop regulatory support, technical assistance and capacity building for EU partner regions including in Africa