Serbian institutions have recognised the importance of consumer protection and through “Strengthening Consumer Protection in Serbia” project, an overall awareness on consumer issues has been raised, said Head of Operations II of the EU Delegation to Serbia José Antonio Gomez Gomez addressing the participants of the closing conference that highlighted results of the EU-funded project worth EUR2 million.
Serbian consumers face similar issues as in many other EU countries, and enforcement bodies do not always have the required level of competencies: they lack mutual cooperation, while alternative dispute resolution systems are still far from well functioning, said Gomez Gomez.
Highlighting the results of the project carried out from August 2011-May 2014, Gomez Gomez said that a consumer protection draft law has been prepared and is in line with EU legislation, containing clearly defined criteria for independent consumer organisations and establishment of Consumer Complaints Registration system.
Strategy for Consumer Protection 2013-2018 was adopted and is being implemented, while the project committed significant resources in building effective relations with and among consumer organizations, in order to become more reliable and independent. “The highly fragmented Serbian consumer movement started to consolidate and cooperate for the benefits of consumers,” said Gomez Gomez.
The project also provided the development of software platform that allows individual consumers to submit requests for information seek for legal advice or make a complaint. The platform is expected to become available for public use in June 2014.
Thanks to the project, an overall awareness among Serbian citizens on consumer issues has been raised.
According to the survey conducted in December 2013, as many as 99.1% of citizens can name one or more of consumer rights, which is a significant increase compared to two years before (74.8%). Also, there is a strong increase in number of citizens aware of the existence of Consumer Protection Law: from 59.8% to 75.4% between 2011 and 2013. However, most of consumers are still unaware of where they can file a complaint or hesitate to do so.
Effective consumer protection is important for the functioning of the economy, because the choices of individual consumers about what to buy, create competitive pressures in the economy, said Gomez Gomez, adding that improved consumer protection enhances consumers’ confidence and increases consumption.
