EU treaties and consumers’ rights

Introduction

The European Union is a set of democratic nations who gathered into a group to carry out a joint project of economic integration and political union. The idea was born at the end of the Second World War, with the aim of building a political project able to keep peace and promote the economic growth of the European countries. Since 1951, a series of Treaties and Agreements gradually designed common objectives, policies, legislation and institutions. Since 1993, year in which the Maastricht Treaty came into force, the European Economic Community became the European Union and since 2002 the Euro currency realized the monetary union of 12 EU countries.

Nowadays, the European Union groups 27 Countries and has almost 492 million of citizens, also being consumers. The Single Market  has the objective of ensuring them access to goods and services of high quality, in a condition of safety, transparency and competition. Consumer protection policies are fundamental for the European Union: to limit inequalities, to fight against unfair practices, to promote health and safety, to improve the life conditions in general...but most of all to increase confidence. The peculiarity of consumer protection is to be part of many EU policies: economy, agriculture, energy, environment, transportation and others.

The European policy on consumption already existed, in embryo, in the middle of Seventies: the first Action Plan is dated 1975 and pointed out consumer rights (among which the right to be refunded for damages, the right to education, the right to representation, the right to the protection of his economic interests). Other Programmes fixed, time by time, specific priorities. The Single Act of 1987 introduced the notion of “consumer” and stated the will to ensure a high protection level to this key actor in the economy and politics of the European Union. The Maastricht Treaty created a complete juridical framework for consumer protection policies, that the Amsterdam Treaty later on specified, confirmed and reinforced.  The General Direction for Health and Consumer Protection was created at the European Commission: it has a fundamental role in the designing of strategies, objectives and tools for consumer protection.