Special Eurobarometer 193: Consumer Protection

Between 9th May 2003 and 30th June 2003, the European Opinion Research Group, a consortium of Market and Public Opinion Research agencies, made out of INRA in Belgium – I.C.O. and GfK Worldwide, carried out wave 59.2 of the standard Eurobarometer, on request of the EUROPEAN COMMISSION, Directorate-General Press and Communication, Opinion Polls. This report, based upon the Eurobarometer 59.2 survey, with comparisons to the Eurobarometer 57.2 survey was carried out in the EU 15.3 This report will address three broad questions: first, European4 consumers opinions on consumer protection and consumer confidence issues, second, consumer knowledge and, third, EU consumers and the Single European Market. In its first part, this report looks at different aspects of consumer protection and onfidence, excluding food safety, across the EU 15, on the national, European and socio-demographic levels. Overall, a significant gap remains between confidence in European consumers’ own countries and the rest of the European Union (15). While slightly under half (48.5%) of Europeans (EU 15) say that they have a high level of consumer protection (excluding food safety) in their own countries, just one-fifth (20.3%) of European consumers feel this is the case for them in the rest of the European Union.5 Other aspects of consumer confidence show similar results, with European figures nearly universally below national figures (with the exception of Greece, where confidence in consumer protection in other countries of the EU 15 is above confidence in Greece). The second section of this report looks at the knowledge consumers have about their rights and on their opinions on the involvement of consumer association in formulating consumer protection policy. There is a considerable gap between consumer knowledge among Europeans in their own countries and in other EU countries. The third section of the report is devoted to consumers’ opinions on the impact of the Single European Market on price, quality and choice of products and services, excluding food safety.6 This analysis is carried out on the national and European level, as well as on the basis of socio-demographic categories. Overall, a plurality of Europeans feel that the Single European Market has had a "fairly positive" impact upon these aspects. The report also looks at the purchasing behaviour of European consumers in other EU 15 countries and their exposure to advertising. #####The results by volumes are distributed as follows: * Volume A: Countries * Volume AA: Groups of countries * Volume A' (AP): Trends * Volume AA' (AAP): Trends of groups of countries * Volume B: EU/socio-demographics * Volume B' (BP) : Trends of EU/ socio-demographics * Volume C: Country/socio-demographics ---- Researchers may also contact GESIS - Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences: [https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer](https://www.gesis.org/eurobarometer)