Enhancing consumer rights: Malta’s Presidency objectives
The 15th of March is the day the world remembers and celebrates consumer rights. On this day consumer entities disseminate information to consumers on their rights and their important role in the economy. As President John F. Kennedy said when addressing the US Congress in 1962, “Consumers are the largest economic group, affecting and affected by almost every public and private economic decision.”
The European Commission is aware of the important role consumers have in the Single Market and knows that for the Single Market to flourish it must provide unhindered access for goods and services to consumers across Europe. A connected and successful Digital Single Market is in fact a key priority of the European Commission.
The Maltese Presidency of the Council of the European Union has set out specific objectives aimed at strengthening the Digital Single Market.
One of these concrete objectives that closely affects consumers’ lives is that of ending roaming charges throughout Europe. This objective will be achieved on the 15th of June 2017, which is the date when Europeans will be able to make calls, send texts and use internet without the fear of huge bills as roaming charges will come to an end. Hence, this summer European citizens will only pay domestic prices, irrespective of where they are travelling in the EU. This was made possible following an agreement reached under the Maltese Presidency.
Another Presidency priority is that of making progress towards removing barriers for consumers who seek to buy products and services in another EU country, be it online or in person. When doing so consumers should not be discriminated against based on nationality or country of residence in terms of access to prices, sales or payment conditions.
Unjustified geo-blocking limits consumer opportunities and choices and is also the main cause of consumer dissatisfaction and of fragmentation of the Single Market. In this regard a legislative proposal made by the Commission is currently being discussed. The proposal defines specific situations when there can be no justified reasons for geo-blocking.
Furthermore, the proposal bans blocking of access to websites and the use of automatic re-routing if the customer has not given prior consent and also provides for a non-discrimination rule in pay- ments. While traders remain free to offer whatever payment means they want, they cannot discriminate within those payment means.
Allowing EU consumers to continue enjoying their ‘home’ subscription to Audio-Visual online content when visiting another Member State is another important Maltese Presidency objective.
The Maltese Presidency of the Council of the EU secured an agreement on new rules allowing Europeans to travel and enjoy online content services across borders. This means that Europeans will soon be able to fully use their online subscriptions to films, sport events, ebooks, video games or music services when travelling within the EU. This agreement is very important as it is the first one reached in relation to the modernisation of EU Copyright rules. It is also an important step in breaking down barriers in the Digital Single Market. This agreement provides new opportunities to citizens to enjoy cultural content and at the same time protects creators and those investing in the production of cultural or sport content.
The Maltese Presidency is also working hard on a draft regulation seeking to strengthen application of consumer protection rules across borders by upgrading co-operation among the competent national authorities. The Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation Review aims at modernising cooperation between national administrations and reduce damage for consumers because of cross-border infringements to EU consumer law.
The new Regulation will set out a number of minimum investigation and enforcement powers that every national competent authority will have to be able to exercise to fight infringements such as for instance identifying sites exercising geoblocking and immediate closure of websites hosting scams.
The Regulation will reinforce the mutual assistance mechanism between national authorities to establish whether an intra-EU infringement has occurred and to stop such infringement. The Maltese Presidency has already reached an agreement on this proposal among the EU Member States in February and will start negotiations with the European Parliament in April.
These Maltese Presidency Priorities will substantially contribute to the building of a Digital Single Market from which European consumers will benefit as they will have wider access to a variety of products and services at competitive prices while having their rights protected.