**1. Introduction**

European measures for consumer protection are intended to protect the health and safety, and economic and legal interests of European consumers, wherever they live, travel, or shop in the EU. The EU provisions regulate both physical transactions and e-commerce and contain rules of general applicability together with provisions targeting specific products, including medicines, genetically modified organisms, tobacco products, cosmetics, toys, and explosives. For this very reason, this area has always been subject to great attention on the part of the European Union, which has sought to establish and fix general guidelines that could protect, in the most efficient way possible, the "weak" party in transnational negotiations.

The present analysis builds on the studies and evaluations performed to date by the EU bodies, and their methodologies in order to identify the most relevant parameters for an evaluation of achievements and benefits. It also presents the interaction and convergence between consumer protection and the measures implemented following the COVID-19 outbreak.

In the light of the above, the analysis covers the period before and following the pandemic, and the enquiry is based on legislative acts proposed, proceeds and enacts during this period, and contains a complete and systematically arranged list of rights created or strengthened for European consumers as well as a list of legislative acts introduced, implemented and also issued on the basis of EU legislation aimed at consumer protection.

The EU in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) represents the substantial law on the welfare of consumers and explicitly dedicates several articles to consumer protection, specifically:


Similarly, the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union also emphasizes, in Article 38, that a high level of consumer protection must always be guaranteed in EU policies. In the light of this, all the major EU institutions have begun to focus on the figure of consumers and the protection of their interests in the development of their own policies and competences, also setting up *ad hoc* systems to safeguard them—just think of the Committee on Petitions of the European Parliament, competent to deal with petitions, in the form of requests or complaints, in which, clearly, in addition to all the matters in which the EU law intervenes, the area of consumer protection also comes into play.

At the same time, the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC)—the EU's consultative body—has also focused its work on consumer protection, emphasizing the obligation for the major institutions (Council and European Commission) to consult the EESC before making decisions. In addition, the EESC also organizes major

#### *The Alternative Disputes Resolution System in the European Union: Consumer Protection… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.108539*

initiatives every year to strengthen the *"weak"* figure of the consumer in the global policy arena, promoting the European Consumer Day and the European Consumer Summit in order to raise the awareness of the "digital transition" and respect for consumer rights, as well as ensuring the transparency of online markets—last summit took place on 10 February 2022. Since the 2000s, therefore, EU started to place consumer protection at the core of its policies, both explicitly and implicitly.

Undoubtedly, among the most significant, in this sense, is the EEC Directive No. 34/1999, which introduced the strict or no-fault liability of the producer in the event of damage caused by defective products, recognizing the possibility for the injured consumer to claim compensation, subject to proof, within 3 years, of the damage suffered, the defect in the product and, obviously, the causal link between them. Furthermore, the EC Directive No. 95/2001 established a system for general product safety in the market, according to which a product, once it has entered the market, will have to comply with certain rules on information provided to consumers as well as precise instructions in order to avoid safety risks, monitoring, and traceability of products.

The novelty of the Directive was also to attempt to focus on possible consumer remedies such as rights to repair, reimbursement, or replacement of the product as well as fines of up to 4% of annual turnover for non-compliant companies in a specific Member State.

Equally important were the EC Directive No. 29/2005, which defined unfair business-to-consumer commercial practices—*i.e.* those that persuade the consumer to take a commercial decision that he or she would never have taken, in particular aggressive and misleading commercial practices—and the EC Directive No. 114/2006 with the aim of protecting consumers from misleading advertising by also setting up a system of supervision by the Courts and administrative bodies of the Member States that would be able to suspend or prohibit unlawful advertising.

Subsequently, starting with the EU Directive No. 83/2011 then updated by the EU Directive No. 2161/2019, the EU began to focus directly on the subject of contracts between consumers and sellers, harmonizing the legislation and establishing a regime applicable to the contracts concluded, specifically for contracts for the supply of water, gas, electricity and contracts for online digital content—whereby, after the 2019 update, the consumer also undertakes to provide his or her personal data as well as the seller will have to comply with various information obligations toward the consumer, such as product characteristics, terms of payment, delivery, and withdrawal sales and service contracts, including both "in house" and remote (online) contracts.

A turning point in the field of consumer protection, however, was the EU Directive No. 11/2013, which began to guarantee to the consumers the possibility of raising a contractual dispute against an EU supplier regarding a product or service before an Alternative Dispute Resolution ("ADR") body. Fundamental principles behind this directive were, without a doubt, the desire to guarantee the consumer's rights to transparency, effectiveness, independence, and fairness by imposing on the seller the obligation to inform the consumer of these means—ADR—and when he may or may not use them.

Following this, with the evolution of the market on online platforms, the EU decided to intervene also through an online dispute resolution mechanism to defend the interests of the "*weak"* party in transnational contracting in an ever more stringent manner. In this sense, the EU Regulation No. 524/2013 established an online telematic platform through which the consumer, who has purchased goods or services online, can activate an online out-of-court dispute resolution procedure, so-called Online Dispute Resolution ("ODR").


#### **Table 1.**

*Treaty foundation of EU instruments orientated toward consumer protection.*

Among the most recent interventions, the EU Directive No. 1828/2020 undoubtedly stands out, which, as of 25 June 2023, will replace the previous EC Directive No. 22/2009 and will introduce several relevant procedures aimed at protecting consumers' collective interests by establishing ad hoc procedures for actions of a compensatory nature (aimed at compensation or reparation or replacement or reimbursement and price reduction) and injunctive relief (aimed at having a practice stopped or prohibited) by groups of consumers through a system of representative actions, also cross-border actions, against companies operating in the fields of financial services, tourism, energy, and telecommunications (**Table 1**).
