Consumer Contracts
When consumers buy a good or a service, things can go wrong: important information about a product is not provided, the good ordered from a website does not arrive in time or not at all, a product turns out to be faulty after the purchase, unfair terms are used in the small-print of a contract etc. Such problems can be difficult enough to solve if the contract is concluded between a consumer and a business in the same country, but it is more complicated and burdensome if contracts are concluded across borders. European consumers still do no have enough confidence to engage more in cross-border transactions. On-line purchases lead to specific problems linked to the conformity of the product/service that a consumer buys and to non-delivery, as well as to privacy issues.
Currently, a number of different pieces of European legislation regulate the most important aspects of consumer contracts. These rules, the so-called “consumer acquis”, date back to the 1980-90’s and have not been adapted to the use of digital technologies, new selling and marketing techniques and societal and environmental developments. The European Commission has therefore launched a big and long term initiative to revise existing consumer contracts law in different areas.
What are our objectives?
We aim to…
... Ensure a high level of consumer protection when buying products and services off-line and online across the EU
... Improve the existing rights of consumers in relation to contracts
... Simplify and make the existing rules more coherent
... Modernise the existing rules, in particular to take into account new technologies and sustainable consumption patterns
What is needed?
Consumers will be more confident when buying products and services in their home country as elsewhere in the EU if:
- Substantial deficits and gaps of the existing consumer contract rules are identified and addressed appropriately
- More and better research is undertaken to learn about consumers shopping patterns and the problems encountered
- A new piece of horizontal consumer legislation is introduced which improves consumer protection in the EU and incorporates the core rights related to consumer contracts, including those that are negotiated and/or concluded online.
- From a consumer perspective, it is possible to accept a maximum harmonisation legislation at EU level, which does not give any possibility to Member States to grant more protective rights, only at a clearly high level of protection and for cross-cutting and technical issues, such as the length of the withdrawal period, the conditions to exercise it and the definition of a consumer for example;
- For many other issues however, such as guarantees and unfair contract terms, this legislative revision should be based on a minimum harmonisation approach, which allows Member states to maintain more advantageous rules for consumers and to adapt them quickly to market changes.
To contact our experts on the issue: consumercontracts[AT]beuc.eu*
Find out more in our recent documents
The future of European Consumers’ Rights: BEUC’s reaction to the fundamental issues raised by the proposal for a directive on consumer rights
Mapping the future of Europe’s consumers…Comments on the Green Paper “Review of the Consumer Acquis”
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