Across the Netherlands and Europe, more legislation is being implemented to protect consumers – from food safety to compensations for travel delays. Arnold Koopmans, a lawyer for Dutch consumer association Consumentenbond and president of the European consumer organisation BEUC, tells Dutch News that consumer rights are an essential part of the economy.

Arnold Koopmans was involved in the recent Consumentenbond filing of a mass claim against Booking for allegedly misleading customers and keeping hotel prices artificially high.

But this is only one of the over 90 cases of collective action taken since the Dutch brought in legislation to allow mass claims by consumers in 2020. Koopmans, who was re-elected president of BEUC, which represents consumers interests in Brussels and has 45 member organisations in 32 countries in May, was part of the working group preparing the law.

“It is very important that consumers are finally able to collectively claim damages for misleading or abusive practices, but there must be a balance because collective redress can be disrupting if not use wisely,” he says.

“We have recently seen companies, or lawyers on their behalf, setting up consumer organisations in order to bring claims primarily for their own profit, not really to help consumers.”

The Netherlands has been one of the pioneers in this area and the European legislation on mass claims, the Representative Actions Directive, is “almost identical to the Dutch law”, Koopmans says.

But “there is still a lot to be done” for these rights to be applied across Europe, as “there is resistance in countries less consumer-friendly than the Netherlands. This is really a European discussion.”

‘Simplification’

The priority of the European Commission is currently the ‘simplification’ of EU legislation to reduce the administrative burden on businesses. Could this be a threat to consumers rights? “We see this plan is affecting consumer legislation,” Koopmans says.

One of the examples is the revision of air passenger rights, with EU governments pushing to increase the delay after which compensation would be due.

“Many people will not have the right to compensation anymore under these news rules. Consumers will get something back with information clarity, automatic refunds and a right to carry-on luggage, but overall, these new terms are out of balance,” Koopmans says.

“We agree that rules should be simple and accessible, especially for small companies, but simplification does not mean deregulation. Consumer law is very important for businesses. It is the grease of the economy because when consumers trust the business environment, it is easier to convince them to buy.”

Strengthening consumer rights

There are also areas in which consumer protection is being strengthened at the European level. A key law in this regard is the Cyber Resilience Act, which requires manufacturers to guarantee the cybersecurity of connected products sold in the EU.

“This is important because connected products such as door bells, baby phones, refrigerators or washing machines could be easily hacked allowing the access to private networks and personal data,” BEUC’s president says.

He also mentions new rules banning hazardous chemicals from toys, and the EU eco-design regulation, which requires that electrical products, textiles, furniture, mattresses, tyres, detergents, paints and certain industrial materials be designed to improve their energy performance, recyclability and possibility to repair.

The EU has also put in place rules to protect consumers in digital markets and in the use of artificial intelligence, “an area that is evolving rapidly and where legislation should not be seen as hindering but helping development,” he continues.

Emerging issues

In other areas, he says, consumer protection is in its early stages, or still to be established. One of these concerns the development of the digital euro.

“Many people say they don’t want digital money, they want to keep the cash, but this is not what the discussion is about. The point is that Europe should have a digital payment ecosystem, which would be the digital euro, with clear rules surrounding it.

“At the moment only two American companies – Visa and Mastercard – manage almost 90% of cross-border payments. We need an alternative which is European and which operates under European standards.”.

Another emerging issue is housing, as affordability is becoming a problem on the Dutch and the European market. “This is not only about making current homes sustainable but, even more important, it is about the right of having a home.” Koopman says. “This topic is typically not on the agenda of consumer organisations but we will probably need to focus on it in the future.”