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Directorate General for Health and Consumers
The Directorate General for Health and Consumers (DG Sanco for Short), is one of the various Directorates of the European Commission.
Each Directorate-General is responsible for a specific policy area and is lead by a director general, who reports to one or more members of the Commission.
Until the end of 2009 the Directorate-General for Health and Consumers answers to two members; the commissioner for Consumer Protection Meglena Kuneva and the commissioner for Health Androulla Vassiliou.
From 2010 John Dalli from Malta will be the new commissioner for Health and Consumer Protection.
Areas of responsibility:
The main issues addressed by DG Sanco are:
Health promotion.
Consumer policy; that is the formation of proactive and organized consumers.
The maintenance of high safety standards of food products.
In the area of health promotion the main objectives are fighting obesity, tobacco consumption and heath problems associated to alcohol, as well as stopping the spread of HIV/AIDS and improving the safety and quality of health services.
Moreover, the DG Sanco set itself the goal to strengthen consumer trust in the enlarged Common Market. This is to be achieved mainly by strengthening consumer networks, raising awareness an rigorous oversight of transposition, and enforcement of existing legislation and prosecution of infringements.
In the area of safety standards for food products the aim is to achieve an effective application of existing legislation and to promote the elevation of sanitary and food standards in third-party countries.
Consumer policy as pursued by the DG Sanco aims to provide better and more complete information to consumers, to promote intra-European purchases and make consumers aware of their rights. Private consumption represents 60% of Europe's GDP (gross domestic product), but only one consumer in five knows that in every European country the same fundamental consumer rights apply; only one third of the EU population is aware that the safety of products bought in Europe is warranted within the whole Union.
Even if the key consumer rights are the same across the EU, significant differences still exist in the laws of the Member States. This legal fragmentation is a source of confusion for consumers who may be subject to a different treatment from one Member State to another.
The lack of consumer confidence that their rights will be protected in other EU countries seems to be the strongest limitation to cross-boarder consumption and this explains why only 12% of citizens make purchases outside their country of residence. Moreover, most existing cross-boarder purchases are made during holidays.
Through its work, DG Sanco wants to strengthen both consumer trust and the effectiveness of consumer legislation.
For this reason, in 2005 the Commission and member states gave birth to the Network of European Consumer Centres (ECC-Net), which answer to the DG Sanco. The European Consumer Centre (ECC) Italy, Bolzano office is part of this network. The ECC-Net is currently consisting of 29 European Consumer Centres (in all 27 Member States, Iceland and Norway).
The aim of the European Consumer Centres is to provide consumers with a wide range of services, from providing information on their rights to giving advice and assistance with their complaints and the resolution of disputes as well as providing information about the possibility deploy Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) mechanisms.
The ECC-Net ensures that consumers are aware of their rights. It also provides information on both EU and national rules and on opportunities offered by the Internal Market.
The ECC-Net, on the basis of its practical experience with everyday consumers, also provides highly relevant input for consumer policy makers at national and EU level.
According to EU-commissioner for Consumer Protection, Meglena Kuneva, the ECC-Net is one of the most important institutions to help citizens take full advantage of their rights.
For further information regarding the Directorate General for Health and Consumers please see
http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/health_consumer/index_en.htm
status 11-2009
n. 64
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I - 39100 Bolzano
tel.: ++39 0471 980939
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