EU consumer rights

In March 2016, the European Commission will launch a two-week information campaign on Facebook. The campaign aims to raise attention around the forthcoming “European Consumer Day” (10 March 2016) and the “World Consumer Rights Day" (15 March 2016).

The initiative represents the last activity foreseen by the two-years long Consumer Rights Awareness Campaign, which has been prolonged until the end of March. The campaign focuses on 5 key rights and duties stemming from EU consumer law for traders and consumers and highlights concrete actions that citizens can take when experiencing problems.

Consumers should be aware of their rights under EU law so they can use them every day, when shopping online or on the high street. That's why the European Commission has organised a campaign informing citizens of their rights under EU consumer law and pointing them to the right places where they can get advice and help in case of questions or problems.

The Consumer Rights Awareness Campaign, which was started in spring 2014, aims to increase the general knowledge among traders and consumers of EU-wide consumer rights, that stem mostly from national transposition of EU directives. Particular focus is on the Consumer Rights Directive, the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, the Unfair Contract Terms Directive and the Consumer Sales and Guarantees Directive.

This year marks the 10-year anniversary since the European Commission, together with national governments, established a network of European Consumer Centres (ECC) in all 28 Member States of the European Union, Norway and Iceland. The ECC-Net promotes the understanding of EU consumers' rights and assists in resolving complaints about purchases made in another country of the network, when travelling or shopping online.

Over the last 10 years, the ECCs received more than 650,000 requests for information about EU consumer rights and assisted about 300,000 consumers. More than two thirds of the complaints received by the ECC-Net are about cross border e-commerce, reflecting the interest of consumers in a well-functioning Digital Single Market. The ECCs are also there to make sure things go right from the start. In fact, many of the complaints were solved in an amicable manner between consumers and traders.

With the help of the ECCs people feel informed about their consumer rights and reassured when buying online across the EU – they know in advance how they are protected if something were to go wrong.