EC Consumer and Health Law in the Candidate Countries

Scientific Essay from the year 2002 in the subject Law - European and International Law, Intellectual Properties, University of Hohenheim (Law), language: English, abstract: In a modern industrial society that offers such a variety of goods and services, consumerprotection plays an increasingly important role. The vast variety of goods and servicesoften leaves the consumer to make a decision about a purchase without possessing all therelevant information. The self-interest nature of consumers has led to the establishment ofconsumer protection unions. Prior to the Amsterdam Treaty, consumer policy was seen as the direct preserve ofthe Member States. There was only a very small unit in the Commission concerned withconsumer protection and it was not very influential and being attached to the InternalMarket Directorate General. As a direct result of the BSE crisis consumer policy wasgiven a distinct Directorate General. The BSE crisis increased the power of the nowextremely influential European Parliament Committee for Environment and Consumers,especially as regards the European Commission as this Committee contained and stillcontains the rapporteur responsible for holding the Commission to task (threat of censure)over the handling of the crisis and the subsequent re-shuffle of the Commission Services. Competencies of the Commission Directorates General responsible for agriculture, for theInternal Market and for the environment were transferred to the new ConsumerDirectorate, which was established 1997. This has inevitably brought about a fundamentalpolicy shift in proposed EC legislation but also in the implementation of legislationbecause of the number of comitology committees ranging from scientific committeesfor food (GMOs for example) to animal health and welfare and veterinary andphytosanitary questions - have been transferred to the new Comitology DirectorateGeneral. The concept of consumer protection is neither an uniform regulated nor sharplydefined political area. Although it consists of various preventative measures, it is not an individual sector. The broad palette of enacted rulings clarifies the character of consumerprotection as task with relations to nearly every policy field. The individual measures goso far as to establish standards for door-to-door sales, pharmaceuticals, foodstuffs, priceindication, and product liability as well as to establish regulations for toys, time sharing,and the extension of credit to consumers. In terms of Article 153 paragraph 2 and Article95 paragraph 3 EC, the demands of consumer protection must be taken into account in allCommunity policies. [...]