Voices for Change: the Consumer Right to Representation

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World Consumer Rights Day 2002: Voices for Change
Representation at the
European Union
The fact that everybody is a consumer
should make consumer representation easy,
but the opposite is true. Everyone is a
consumer, but we are also citizens, workers,
employers, industrialists, farmers, traders,
professionals and so on. The impact of a
political decision for good or ill on
producers, for instance, is usually far
greater than the impact on individual
consumers, and this is one reason why
producers are more willing to spend money
to influence a specific policy point than
consumers.
BEUC, the European Consumers
Organisation, was founded in 1962 and
now represents 33 national consumer
organisations from 23 European countries.
Despite this representation at the European
Union (EU) level, it remains enormously
difficult to ensure that the interests of
consumers are adequately represented in
the decision-making process in the EU.
The Treaty of Rome, which gave birth to the
European Community, does not mention
consumer policy, and it was only slowly that
some elements of a common consumer
policy have been developed. One of the
main challenges currently is to integrate
consumer policy into EU policy as a whole,
as provided in the Amsterdam Treaty,
which entered into force in 1999.
Nowadays, representatives of independent
consumer organisations sit, as a matter of
course, on a wide range of consultative
bodies. These include the Consumer
Committee, which gives input on EU policy
affecting consumers, informs the European
Commission of national developments, and
reports to the Commission’s Health and
Consumer Protection Directorate (DG
SANCO). Many other advisory committees
also have consumer representatives.
Participation in advisory committees is
often important, but only as a small part of
a much wider advocacy process. There is
no permanent consumer representation at
the European Parliament or the Council
of Ministers, the other two main EU
institutions. At the former, consumer
policy is examined by the EP Committee
on Environment, Public Health and
Consumer Policy and by other committees,
notably the Legal Affairs Committee. In
the Council of Ministers, it is overseen by
the Internal Market, Consumer Policy
and Tourism Council, which meets about
four times a year.
As consumer advocates, we see ourselves as
one voice and accept fully the legitimacy
of other voices in public discourse. Public
policy and public welfare would be
poorer without strong and influential
representation of the consumer interest.
– by Jim Murray, Director of BEUC