Guest blog: Věra Jourová, Commissioner responsible for Justice, Consumers and Gender Equality - Main contents

I would like to welcome my colleague Věra Jourová in this guest blog on what the Commission is doing for online consumers in the context of our plans to create a Digital Single Market in Europe - on Consumer and Competition Day, organised by the Luxembourg EU Presidency.

Consumers and businesses are at the heart of the Commission's strategy. We are working to bring down barriers that are holding back the development of e-commerce across the 28 countries of the European Union: barriers that prevent consumers from profiting fully from this large and varied market.

Today, almost 50% of people in the EU buy online. But between its countries? Far fewer, not even one in eight. In retail, only 5% of companies sell across EU borders.

One reason for the low amount of cross-border e-commerce is that there is a contractual consumer law issue, both for buyers as well as sellers. Another is that many people who shop online do not feel that their rights are sufficiently protected.

Věra and her team have been working hard on these issues and the Commission has asked for views and ideas from everyone on how best to remove contractual obstacles to the online purchases of digital content and physical goods.

I would like to thank everyone for their contributions, which we have now assessed. I am happy to say that we are proceeding as planned with preparing the proposal for digital contracts announced in the DSM strategy, to be delivered by the end of the year.

This proposal will contribute to faster growth of the Digital Single Market, for the benefit of both consumers and businesses, by eliminating contract law related barriers.

Welcome @VeraJourova on #Ansipblogs

Consumers in the digital world - my contribution to unleash the economic potential of the DSM

By Věra Jourová

On Consumer and Competition Day, I would like to focus on consumers on the internet and their role in the Digital Single Market initiative managed by Vice-president Ansip.

As Bill Gates rightly said, "The Internet is becoming the town square for the global village of tomorrow".

It is true. Digital technologies are making our world smaller. And they also expand our capacity to buy just about anything from just about anywhere at the click of a mouse.

But online barriers remain. Because of them, European consumers miss out on attractive offers. European companies and startups cannot branch out across borders. European governments cannot fully benefit from digital tools.

The race for global business is on, and the EU Single Market - the core of European integration - must be part of it.

First of all, we need to do away with major barriers that hinder e-commerce across borders. We must merge our 28 national markets into one.

This is precisely what I am aiming for with the proposal on digital contracts, my priority for the Digital Single Market project.

We have already taken some steps forward. Today, all European consumers who buy goods and digital contents online have the same right to pre-contractual information and the same right of withdrawal.

However, we still have no EU rules in place to deal with defective digital content. Secondly, a consumer who buys tangible goods online from another Member State may not have the same legal guarantee on that product as he would in his own country. These consumer protection issues are among those that require further EU-wide action.

By harmonising key rules for consumer protection, traders will be able to sell across borders and consumers will enjoy the same rights throughout the EU. What is more, this will also help cut down transaction costs for businesses and create effective EU-wide rights for consumers.

The European Commission has held a public consultation over the past few weeks on how to remove contractual obstacles to online purchases of digital content and tangible goods. It is still too early to reveal the results but I encourage you to pay close attention to my DG website to learn more about the direction our proposal will take.