A sense of belonging

Ahead of celebrating international consumer day, Meglena Kuneva explains to Sarah Collins how consumer policy can help translate the commission’s ideas into everyday language

Fresh from announcing the Finnish winner for best consumer campaign at the consumer champion awards (“Imagine – all 27 countries participated. It’s wonderful. We are talking about solidarity”), the EU’s Bulgarian consumer commissioner waxes lyrical about her vision for the portfolio she took over in January 2007.

“I will not hide from you that my ambition is for Europe to be the standard-bearer. The world is becoming global and it’s very important which standards will be followed. If we can enhance our voice, through consumer choice, then good for us. This is a great portfolio because we have everything in it. We have one good and solid piece of legislation, we have a lot of economy, we have big ideas behind it; these are ideas about fairness and about the internal market. This portfolio could fill the gap between people and institutions – through it we can prove that Europe cares.”

One of Kuneva’s pet projects is the recently launched consumer market scoreboard, or market watch, which aims to be a “reality check” on the internal market from the consumer’s point of view. The scoreboard, although only embryonic at this stage, gathers together information from official EU sources and national authorities to take a “snapshot” of what consumers feel they’re getting for their buck. The idea is to measure information on consumer complaints, whether and why people switch suppliers, prices, safety and satisfaction levels, compile this into a statistical report, and identify malfunctioning areas for further analysis. The final phase of the market watch plan is to remedy market failures by enforcement action, initiating legislation or forming codes of conduct.

“We test the market, not just for businesses but from the consumer point of view. This is yin and yang, we need to fit these two parts together to make a real single market. I believe we can’t receive complaints about one or another service or good and just do nothing, or leave it to the member states alone. That is not an internal market for citizens. We need to see how citizens react; if they really enjoy and use the entire possibility of the internal market.” She was inspired by parliament, she says, in creating a policy where the end goal is to make the consumer environment more clear and transparent – and more comfortable for consumers. “I was inspired by my talks with IMCO, which is a very good committee, with very professional MEPs who are devoted to consumer policy.”

The reasoning behind the market watch project is self-evident for the commissioner. “It’s really a great power, 56 per cent of this economy is because of consumers. In the US it’s 70 per cent. This is a new generation, with new ethics. The modern consumer would like to be unique. This new consumer mostly cares about the environment, or at least he or she must be given a chance to care. The economy is becoming more behaviouristic than ever before.”

But consumer policy is not just about new cars and credit cards. According to Kuneva, it’s the lynchpin holding all other portfolios together. “It is actually in all other policies. President Barroso invented this portfolio as a separate one, bearing this in mind. There are commissioners who are really consumer champions, and in some portfolios this is really the very ground, the very basis for a portfolio being developed, like competition. If we have a common consumer narrative then we can properly develop this segment in all the sectors. If you have a consumer contract, it will influence transport, telecommunications, energy, the internal market.”

And we have to seize the opportunity to recognise the importance of consumer policy, says Kuneva, before it’s too late. “I very much believe that this policy is similar to the environmental policy. Some 30 years ago, everyone was stating that the environment is just kind of exotic. Now everything is related to sustainable development and we know that we are late. The same will be the case with consumer policy. Now we are talking about sustainable consumption, sustainable production, and investing in consumer policy and whoever speaks up faster about this trend will be the next winner.”

The backbone of a good consumer policy and a mantra of many a Barroso commissioner is communicating with citizens. And for Kuneva, it’s not just about poster campaigns organising consumer awards. “Consumer policy offers exactly a kind of a translation into everyday language of the biggest ideas of the current European commission. Campaigns are very important but we need to have everyday policy because if we cannot explain to people in the street what we are doing with the internal market, it will remain a remote policy. We need to answer to people what we are doing with their complaints, how they really lead the policy, how they could shift the policy. This is real empowerment. That’s why we depend on how convincing and plausible our ideas are related to the everyday lives of all of us. This is s a policy through which we can offer these ideas and make people involved in what’s going on in Europe.”

At bottom, what consumer policy offers the citizen is a connection to the EU, says the commissioner. “There is no need to preach being European if you cannot prove in your everyday experience that, yes, you do belong to this internal market. This feeling of belonging to the union, we can really in some aspects regain and in some aspects establish through the consumer policy. So it’s equally well placed to make an internal market for citizens, not just for businesses, to cut red tape for citizens as well, and to have a social agenda – a citizens’ agenda.”