Facts and Views on Nordic Consumer Policy

Abstract: The key element in consumer policy is to create the best possible conditions for consumers: The best conditions with regard to consumer protection and rights, but also in relation to the opportunity for consumers to choose between an ever expanding range of alternatives on a transparent basis. There is a long tradition of creating good conditions for consumers in the Nordic countries. However, having a good baseline must not be used as an excuse for politicians, authorities or the business community to rest on their laurels. Good conditions for consumers benefit the individual consumer, but they also help ensure that Nordic businesses are highly competitive. These are characteristics and strengths we need to build on. If the best possible conditions are to be ensured, it is of course crucially important to know what conditions consumers actually regard as significant. It is important to focus on those areas that have the greatest impact on consumer satisfaction. It is important to be able to allocate priorities - but sensible allocation of priorities necessitates having knowledge based on facts. The purpose of the project was to make a start on the development of the Nordic model for consumer and customer satisfaction, as a step in the direction of consumer policy based on facts. It is hoped that more quantitative arguments can be brought into the debate on setting priorities with the model, and that it will become possible to monitor whether the initiatives that are launched actually have the anticipated effects

"This book analyses the founding years of consumer law and consumer policy in Europe. It combines two dimensions: the making of national consumer law and the making of European consumer law, and how both are intertwined. The chapters on Germany, Italy, the Nordic countries and the United Kingdom serve to explain the economic and the political background which led to different legal and policy approaches in the then old Member States from the 1960s onwards. The chapter on Poland adds a different layer, the one of a former socialist country with its own consumer law and how joining the EU affected consumer law at the national level. The making of European consumer law started in the 1970s rather cautiously, but gradually the European Commission took an ever stronger position in promoting not only European consumer law but also in supporting the building of the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC), the umbrella organisation of the national consumer bodies. The book unites the early protagonists who were involved in the making of consumer law in Europe: Guido Alpa, Ludwig Krm̃er, Ewa Letowska, Hans-W Micklitz, Klaus Tonner, Iain Ramsay, and Thomas Wilhelmsson, supported by the younger generation Aneta Wiewiórowska Domagalska, Mateusz Grochowski, and Koen Docter, who reconstructs the history of BEUC. Niklas Olsen and Thomas Roethe analyse the construction of this policy field from a historical and sociological perspective. This book offers a unique opportunity to understand a legal and political field, that of consumer law and policy, which plays a fundamental role in our contemporary societies."--