EU to look into consumers' happiness
ELITSA VUCHEVA
30.01.2008 @ 08:52 CET
EUOBSERVER / BRUSSELS – The European Commission is to present proposals on Thursday (31 January) aimed at evaluating how satisfied consumers are with the bloc's single market.
EU consumer protection commissioner Meglena Kuneva will unveil plans for a "Consumer Market Watch", consisting of two steps – monitoring of the market and analysis of the collected data.
Meglena Kuneva - checking up on consumer satisfaction (Photo: European Commission)
The goal is to evaluate how effective the market is for the consumers, detect possible market failures and take corrective action if necessary, according to Ms Kuneva.
The commission says its initiative is in response to a need for the EU market "to be more responsive to the expectations and concerns of citizens and more able to adjust to the challenges of globalisation.
"In the face of these challenges, more attention needs to be paid to the final outcomes affecting EU citizens."
On Thursday, Ms Kuneva will also present the first "scoreboard" gathering consumer data from the different member states and using five indicators to measure consumers' happiness: prices, complaints, switching rates (between different service providers), satisfaction and safety.
The commission scoreboard - seen by EUobserver - shows that the prices of some goods and services vary strongly in across member states.
Danish, Finnish, Swedish and Irish citizens pay the highest prices for food, while Bulgarians, Slovaks, Latvians and Romanians pay the lowest.
In addition, Bulgarians pay around €7/100 Kwh for electricity, while Italians pay around €17/100 Kwh. The price index does not take into account the differences of wages and living standards, however.
Ms Kuneva rejects claims that this initiative is an attempt by Brussels to interfere in member states' price setting and said she simply wants to understand where the variations come from.
"Our job is not to interfere in price setting, but to understand what explains the price differences in the different member states," she told a group of journalists.
It is not just prices that vary within the EU. Complaint procedures are often a source of dissatisfaction, with, for example, 76 percent of Finns stating they are satisfied with the way their complaints were dealt with by different service providers, while only 26 percent of Cypriots said they feel the same way.
But the scoreboard to be presented on Thursday will not be complete as data for some member states was not available – something Brussels hopes to have worked out by the end of the year.
In Bulgaria and Romania for instance, European Consumers' Centres dealing with, among other items, citizens' complaints, did not exist at the time of preparation of the document. In both countries, these centres are set to open next week.
The scoreboard publication will become a yearly event, with a dedicated unit of 14 people currently working on the project.
