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If you can't get enough of consumer and digital law developments this week, the European Commission has also announced its 2030 Consumer Agenda.
As the name suggests, the 2030 Consumer Agenda is a strategic plan for EU consumer policy for the next five years. Enhancing consumer trust, ensuring legal clarity, improving enforcement, and easing administrative processes for businesses are key aims of the Agenda. It is also designed to enhance consumer protection and promote competitiveness, social fairness, and sustainable growth across the EU.
The Commission says that it needs to adapt the consumer protection framework to keep up with the rapidly changing landscape marked by increased living costs, evolving market practices, particularly online, and the surge in e–commerce. As well as protecting consumers, the Commission wants to protect compliant companies in the EU from unfair competition from non-compliant traders.
The Agenda focuses on four key priority areas:
Completing the Single Market for consumers
The Commission proposes an Action Plan for Consumers in the Single Market to eliminate cross-border obstacles for consumers and boost opportunities for businesses. This action plan includes the evaluation of the Geo-Blocking Regulation, to assess if it has met its objective to eliminate unjustified geo-blocking and other forms of discrimination based on nationality, place of residence or establishment.
Digital fairness and consumer protection online
As we've previously reported, the Commission is planning a new Digital Fairness Act (DFA) in 2026 to strengthen the protection of consumers in the digital environment, against practices such as dark patterns, addictive design features or unfair personalisation that takes advantage of consumers' vulnerabilities. The DFA will pay particular attention to the protection of children online to reduce the exposure of minors to harmful practices and features in digital products.
The Commission will also simplify rules for businesses and explore how digital solutions can reduce administrative burden for companies and improve access to information for consumers. It also says that reinforcing the protection of consumers against online fraud will be an important area of work.
Promoting sustainable consumption
The Commission will support Member States in implementing EU product and consumer laws, which protect consumers against greenwashing, promote a wider offer of sustainable goods, and facilitate the durability and repairability of products. The Commission will also support the circular economy by working with stakeholders to promote the return of goods that are no longer used, second-hand markets or innovative circular start-ups. However, there's no word on whether the Green Claims Directive will be coming back.
Effective enforcement and redress
The Commission says that the exponential growth of e-commerce has led to the growing circulation of unsafe or non-compliant products originating mostly from third countries. Consumers also face unfair commercial practices online from non-compliant traders.
In 2026, the Commission will prioritise the review of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation to strengthen enforcement, protect consumers from market players who do not respect the rules, and shield compliant businesses from unfair competition. It is also going to assess the need for centralising enforcement powers in certain cases (presumably in itself) and how to strengthen coordination among national authorities. The EU will also continue to cooperate directly with third-countries to tackle product safety.
It will also propose a revision of the Market Surveillance Regulation which will explore further measures to make product safety enforcement more efficient and potentially establish an EU market surveillance authority.
If you sell products and services to consumers in the EU, it is important to keep on top of these developments. If you need any help, please contact the team or consult our Consumer Law Hub.
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