The EU Consumer Ministers, meeting this Monday in Bilbao, have shared “a clear and determined consensus” on “the need for consumer policies to act in the face of the climate emergency and the fight against climate change”.
In a public appearance to announce the conclusions of the informal meeting of EU consumer ministers, the Secretary General for Consumer Affairs and Gaming of the Government of Spain, Rafael Escudero, explained that, for this, they intend to take “legislative and non-legislative measures”, among which is the directive on the empowerment of consumers in the ecological transition that, “if all goes well”, will be approved in September under the Spanish Presidency of the Council of the European Union.
For his part, the European Commissioner for Justice, Didier Reynders, who participated in the press conference, highlighted the sustainable economy as a “path to competitiveness” and defended the same protection for ‘online’ and ‘offline’ consumers.
“We share with the different States what are the next legislative and non-legislative steps to take in this matter. We demonstrate a clear, determined consensus shared by all the delegations on the need to act through consumer policies in the face of the climate emergency and the fight against climate change”, said Rafael Escudero.
In this sense, he said that work was done on some proposals that are “in the approval process, basically three.” One of them is the directive on the empowerment of consumers in the ecological transition, and he said that they believe that “if all goes well, it could be approved during the Spanish Presidency in September.”
The other two legislative ‘files’, which he also considered “very important”, are on the right to reparation and on the so-called “green complaints”.
“We think that the future of consumer policies in the coming months will depend on the approval of these legislative ‘dossiers’, and we have shared and advanced a lot to reach a consensus between the different States on this matter”, he said.
After thanking the Spanish Presidency and Escudero for organizing this meeting, Reynders pointed out that this meeting was an opportunity for the Ministers and Consumer Authorities to meet to discuss the Consumer Agenda presented in 2020, in which work is being done on digital and green transformation, and in which “progress has been made”, both in legislative and non-legislative matters.
Specifically, the commissioner pointed out that, in the field of financial services, progress has been made in the directive on consumer credit and on the distance marketing of financial services to help consumers
Didier Reynders stressed that, during the pandemic, more and more loans were made over the Internet and that it is important “to offer the same protection to ‘online’ consumers as to ‘offline’ consumers”.
Reynders said that there are different credit and payment systems that are increasingly used by young people and that progress has also been made in intellectual cooperation and product safety, “something that is very important in the digital field.”
The European Commissioner for Justice stressed that, thanks to the Spanish Presidency, it was possible to collaborate with Latin American leaders, but also with the United States to deal with different issues, such as with the commission responsible for product safety in the United States or with the department responsible for financial services.
“At the end of the day, we all face the same risks, the same challenges, and we have to work together. At the end of the day, we see that the different players in the digital realm have no borders,” she said.
The curator has also highlighted that this meeting has also worked “with a vision of the future” and has acknowledged that he has been impressed by the commitment of all the participants “for more sustainable consumption patterns and a more sustainable economy”.
As he said, from the beginning of the Commission’s mandate, the Green Pact was launched, which “is now something that is accepted globally.” In this sense, Reynders pointed out that there are debates between politicians, between companies, but also in society, regarding everything that is being done, and guaranteed that it has to be demonstrated that “a sustainable economy is the path for the competitiveness of companies”.
“Of course, we also have to be aware of the social dimensions of everything we do in terms of a sustainable economy, in the future it will be increasingly important to work with these issues in mind,” he said.
“We are sure that, in the next five years, we will have to continue working on the digital transition, on the ecological transition -we saw that this summer-, we had to face severe climatic conditions and we also need the commitment of consumer policies to face these phenomena”, he concluded.
The informal meeting in Bilbao continues on Tuesday, focusing on industry and domestic trade.
Source: TSF
