Press releases

The European Commission proposed new EU-wide crowdfunding rules today which could have served as a solid basis to protect people who invest through crowdfunding platforms. Unfortunately, the EU licence they propose is only of interest to the platforms that operate in more than one country and, even then, remains optional.

A European Union law is set to enter into force this Saturday putting an end to the practice of surcharges on card payments, credit transfers and direct debits.

The European Commission has today proposed a weak reform of the agencies that supervise financial services at European level. It is bewildering that the proposal still limits the agencies’ role in protecting consumers, which is mostly devolved to national level where protection standards vary enormously. The reform means the agencies will continue to subordinate consumer protection to considerations about the stability of the financial sector.

The European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) undertook a consumer performance check of the first two-and-a-half years of the Juncker Commission.1 We looked at the Commission’s legislative initiatives and its key policy actions and graded their performance on a scale from very good to very bad.