The Consumerism and Consumer Protection Policies In the European Community (original) (raw)
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Consumer policy used to be an appendix to market integration in Europe. In the meantime the European Commission has turned consumer protection into a tool to boost the European Union's reputation. Be it new regulations on mobile phone tariffs, be it regulatory threats to energy companies: the Commission seeks to act on behalf of consumers to dilute the image of business friendly deregulation. Although there are still national paths to consumer protection it is the Commission that longs for a comprehensive policy at the European level. Is this still part of the Commission's drive for economic integration? Or is consumer policy facing its own renewal throughout Europe, with subjects like food safety, obesity or smoking as most salient issues? This special issue of German Policy Studies sheds light on ongoing trends in European consumer protection, both at national and European level. Following Majone (1996), integration by law is the European way of regulatory politics. A lot of legal scholars agree that EC competition law and contract law have paved the way to harmonising consumer policy throughout Europe (Micklitz 2004; Stuyck 2005). From the perspective of political science, questions on convergence turn up. Research has revealed that three models of consumer protection shape Western democracies: the protection model, the information
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