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COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE
1. SUMMARY
The 493 million EU consumers are central to the three main challenges facing the EU: growth, jobs and the need to re-connect with our citizens. They are the lifeblood of the economy as their consumption represents 58% of EU GDP. Confident, informed and empowered consumers are the motor of economic change as their choices drive innovation and efficiency. But it is also in their role as consumers that the EU can most directly connect to the daily lives of our citizens and demonstrate the benefits of the EU.
The 493 million EU consumers are central to the three main challenges facing the EU: growth, jobs and the need to re-connect with our citizens. They are the lifeblood of the economy as their consumption represents 58% of EU GDP. Confident, informed and empowered consumers are the motor of economic change as their choices drive innovation and efficiency. But it is also in their role as consumers that the EU can most directly connect to the daily lives of our citizens and demonstrate the benefits of the EU.
The response to these challenges lies in equipping the consumer with the skills and tools to fulfil their role in the modern economy; in making markets deliver for them and in ensuring effective protection from the risks and threats they cannot tackle as individuals.
The internal market has played a central part in meeting Europe’s economic challenges and delivering tangible benefits for EU citizens. But the consumer dimension of the internal market and retail markets in particular needs to be further reinforced. The new economic, social, environmental and political context calls for a change in focus of EU policy towards consumers.
The place of EU consumer policy will be at the heart of the next phase of the internal market, as set out in the Commission’s communication to the Spring European Council on the Single Market Review.
The internal market has the potential to be the largest retail market2 in the world. Today, it remains largely fragmented along national lines, forming 27 mini-markets instead. The advent of the e-commerce revolution, which has still not reached critical mass, has transformed the potential for integration of retail markets in the EU to give a major stimulus to competitiveness and expand the opportunities for EU citizens. While the technological means are increasingly in place, business and consumer behaviour lags far behind, restrained respectively by internal market obstacles and a lack of confidence in cross-border shopping.
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