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European regional consumer policy (EU-2030 Consumer Agenda), is aimed at “uniting” million consumers in the EU-wide single market; consumers contribute over 50 percent to the EU’s GDP through household spending. As consumers play essential role in the European economy, the agenda is enhancing consumers’ trust, ensuring legal clarity, bolstering enforcement and easing administrative burden for companies, etc. Th 2030-Agenda is designed to foster consumer protection and promote competitiveness, social fairness and sustainable growth.
Background
The 2030 Consumer Agenda builds on the achievements of the New Consumer Agenda adopted in 2020 and is the result of intensive preparations and discussions with interested parties. In May 2025, the Commission launched an EU-wide open public consultation, which has shown general support for its main priorities. The present proposals complement other Commission initiatives such as the Single Market Strategy, the Competitiveness Compass, and the forthcoming Single Market Roadmap.
To support this initiative, the Commission carried out an EU-wide open public consultation in the period May-August 2025. The public consultation provided valuable insight for the setting up the 2030 Consumer Agenda, and its results may be consulted under the synopsis report.
On synopsis report in: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/consumers/consumer-protection-policy/2030-consumer-agenda_en
The Consumer Agenda reflects the cross-cutting nature of consumer policy, referencing actions across many EU policy areas. However, it is not meant to provide a full picture of all consumer-related initiatives undertaken by the Commission. In this regard, the stakeholder contributions that go beyond the issues covered by the Consumer Agenda will inform other relevant policy making processes as appropriate.
Priority areas
The strategy addresses four key priority areas and includes:
= An Action plan for consumers in the single market to address barriers preventing over 450 million of consumers from fully leveraging the benefit of the Single Market.
= Digital fairness and consumer protection online to strengthen the protection of consumers, especially children, in the digital environment.
= Sustainable consumption to ensure consumers have access to sustainable products and services and better protect them against greenwashing.
= Effective enforcement and redress to protect consumers from market players who do not respect the rules and shield compliant businesses from unfair competition.
Reference to: https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/consumers/consumer-protection-policy/2030-consumer-agenda_en
The actions set out in the agenda will be underpinned by active international cooperation and will build on an inclusive, transparent and dynamic governance framework.
European Consumer Summits
The 2024 European Consumer Summit, which took place on 18 April 2024, was focused on discussing consumer policy priorities and actions for the next Commission mandate and the future 2025-2030 Consumer Agenda. Discussions included a high-level panel on the future of consumer policy and a series of highly interactive break-out sessions on a wide range of topics. The issues discussed ranged from promoting circularity, to challenges related to drop shipping, the use of data for enforcement, dark patterns, door-to-door selling, online fraud and scams, mileage fraud in second-hand vehicles and how to best support the consumer movement. Discussions at the 2025 European Consumer Summit, which took place on 20 May 2025, also focused on several topics to be addressed in the agenda, such as: the interplay between consumer policy and the EU economy’s competitiveness; how to address the growing
influence and risks of online and cross-border e-commerce; the critical role of enforcement in upholding consumer protection laws; and how to shape a safe digital market for young consumers.
Agenda’s digital issues
The agenda’s stakeholders were also generally supportive of strengthening consumer protection in the digital environment, especially for young consumers. In this regard, the proposal for a Digital Fairness Act (which is covered by a separate, specific consultation) was supported by various stakeholders, notably consumer organisations and several public authorities. On the other hand, businesses insisted on a cautious approach to any new legislation in this area, underlining the need to better enforce existing legislation, reduce administrative burden and only consider introducing new rules if significant legal gaps are clearly identified and substantiated.
Online fraud and scams were consistently identified as a problem by all stakeholder groups, with most respondents to the public consultation (60%) highlighting it as one of the main issues to address.
The digitalisation of consumer information was also brought up by various stakeholders, with many business stakeholders supporting the introduction of a ‘digital by default’ principle. Consumer organisations and NGOs took a more cautious approach on this topic, highlighting
the need to ensure that information is accessible, and that certain essential information remains in physical form.
Public authorities prioritised stronger enforcement mechanisms and consumer protection in the digital environment. With regards to online consumer protection, public authorities pointed to dark patterns, protecting children as young consumers and influencer-marketing as some of the main problems to address. They also stressed the need for consumer education and digital literacy and highlighted the need for improved complaint handling, single points of contact and multilingual support to facilitate redress.
Corporate concerns
Consumers’ protection issues were also echoed by some business sectors: i.e. overall, businesses underscored the importance of consistent enforcement across EU states and emphasized the need for legal guidance, harmonisation and simplification of existing rules, rather than the introduction of new ones.
They advocated for the provision of better legal guidance, reducing regulatory burdens and supporting self-regulation, particularly in sectors like advertising and the protection of
minors in video-games. Among other topics, businesses also highlighted the importance of preserving the territoriality of copyright, simplifying sectorial legislation (e.g. in telecommunications), and encouraging investments in green technologies and innovations in sustainable consumption.
Some business stakeholders also raised concerns about the sale of counterfeit goods and intellectual property protection.
Other issues brought up by business stakeholders included: 1) misleading commercial practices related to the sale of jewelry; 2) the specificities of second-hand markets; 3) preserving national regulatory autonomy regarding gambling services; 4) tackling problems with illegal gambling operators; 5) ensuring the financial sustainability of the press and media sector; 6) ensuring a level playing field in audiovisual media services; 7) strengthening customs and market surveillance; and 8) regulating third party litigation funding.
In relation to administrative burden reduction, more coherent, effective and efficient enforcement of consumer-protection rules were considered most important by business respondents to the public consultation, followed by clearer legal guidance to facilitate business compliance.