CONSUMER POLICY

On 5 and 6 June, European Consumer policy Commissioner Neven Mimica visiting Romania as part of a series of Consumer Missions to Member States where there is great potential for further strengthening consumer culture. The message at the heart of these missions is that for consumer rights legislation to deliver its full benefits, consumers have to know what their rights are and go after them in their everyday lives.

Commissioner Mimica said: "It is vital that consumers know their rights and make full use of them in practice. If you do not know your rights, you will not use or enforce them. When asked about their basic consumer rights Romanian consumers answer correctly in 51% of the cases, significantly below the EU average of 60%. It is vital that consumers know their rights and make full use of them in practice."

In Romania, The European Commission is working closely with national authorities and consumer organisations in order to help empower Romanian consumers. In this context, the Commissioner met with the Prime Minister, Victor Ponta, the President of the Chamber of Deputies, Valeriu Zgonea, Members of Parliament working on Consumer issues, Constantin Nita, Minister of Economy and with Marius Dunca, President of the National Agency for Consumer Protection. The Commissioner also met with the representatives of a number of consumer organisations.

The discussions focused on how to further improve people's awareness of their rights. In particular with regard to the new rights which citizens will have when the Consumer rights directive enters into force on 13 June. A second related issue is how best to ensure enforcement of these rights for example through mechanisms such as Alternative Dispute Resolution and Online Dispute resolution.

A specific event on air passenger rights was organized at Henri Coanda airport and gave the commissioner the opportunity to discuss directly with passengers the issues which concern them.

Commissioner Mimica attaches great importance to educating young consumers and was therefore very pleased to meet with the students and teachers from “Colegiul National & Ecaterina Teodoroiu”, Târgu-Jiu, the Romanian school which won the Second Prize at this year's ConsumerClassroom.eu competition. The Commissioner took the opportunity to listen to young people's ideas about how consumer protection rules can better serve the need of the young generation.