What rights do consumers have? How should you approach shoe shopping? What should you have in mind when it comes to promotions and door-to-door sales? The citizens of Novi Sad today had the opportunity to have these, and many more, questions answered at the info stand of the Ministry of Commerce, Tourism and Telecommunications at the BIG shopping mall.
The public event is part of an ongoing effort to educate consumers in Serbia, implemented by the Twinning project “Further development of consumer protection in Serbia” implemented jointly by the Ministry of Commerce, Tourism and Telecommunications of Serbia and the Regional Development Agency Senec-Pezinok from Slovakia.
“We aim to improve the existing consumer complaints register. It should be put into operation as of 1 January. Consumers can directly submit their complaints in the register and leave it to employees to resolve them. Also, we are actively working to improve the consumer web-site. We should complete it by early 2019,” Assistant to Twinning Consultant Emina Paunovic said and added that consumer fairs, such as the one today, are important as they allow consumers to obtain information on their rights.
She added that in 2019, in March to be precise, similar events will take place in order to bring citizens closer to their consumer rights and inform retailers on their obligations, the way distance contracts are signed, the way complaints are resolved and many other useful details.
“The project has also organised training for employees of the Ministry, but also for retailers and justice professionals. An important part of the project is the transposition of certain EU directives of relevance to the area. Those directives will be transposed into the amended Law on Consumer Protection and fresh bylaws. Also, we are working to produce a five-year consumer protection strategy,“ she added.
The Twinning project “Further consumer protection in Serbia“ kicked off in August and will run through August 2019. It is funded through EU funds to the tune of EUR1,425.000. Through twinning projects, the EU supports institutional cooperation between EU Member States and beneficiary countries. Said Twinning project deals with legislative and institutional capacity improvement in the area of consumer protection to make accession negotiations more effective and meet EU membership conditions more efficiently.
