On the Consultation on the status quo of EU Consumer Law (Digital Fairness)

In context of the Announcement of the New Consumer Agenda, the European Commission (EC) recently launched a public consultation on the status quo of EU consumer law. Its main goal is to evaluate the impact of current regulation to decide whether there is a need for additional legal requirements.

Bitkom is grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the consultation on the current state of EU consumer law and welcomes future occasions to offer its expertise in open discussions.

In a nutshell, the EC’s public consultation is a crucial opportunity to have a frank discussion about the status quo of EU consumer law. We agree without reservation that consumers should be protected against abusive and unfair business practices. However, the EC should acknowledge and include in all further assessments that there already is a sufficient regulative framework with the Unfair Commercial Practices Directive, the Consumer Right Directive, the Unfair Contract Terms Directive, the GDPR as well as the upcoming AI Act, Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act. These existing regulations could be improved by a more harmonised and efficient enforcement, where necessary, obviating the need for new laws.

By means of this Position Paper, we would like to supplement our replies to the public consultation questionnaire on EU consumer law. For convenience, our comments are aligned with the structure of the questionnaire.