Address by Mr Tom Kitt, T.D., Minister for Consumer Affairs at the European Consumer Forum entitled "Consumer Policy and the Amsterdam Treaty" at the Dublin Writers Museum, Parnell Square, Dublin on the 2nd October 1998

I would like to welcome you all here to-day to the Writer's Museum in Dublin to what I hope will be a stimulating and productive seminar on the subject of consumer protection, which is increasingly being recognised as an issue of major concern to EU citizens. Tackling the problems of consumers gives the Community an opportunity to demonstrate its relevance to its citizens and its ability to deal with their concerns. I very much hope that our discussions will prove useful in the development of our next three year programme for the period 1999-2001.

I would like to thank the Writers' Museum for their co-operation in making this venue available to us for our seminar. In these elegant surroundings, our proceedings will be overseen by the ghosts of the four Nobel prize winners featured in the Museum. It would, perhaps, be too much to hope that our contributions to the discussion over the next 24 hours will exhibit the lyrical beauty of the poems of W B Yeats or Seamus Heaney or the wit of George Bernard Shaw and I hope we adopt a somewhat more optimistic approach than Samuel Beckett. However, I believe it is inspirational to meet in a place which celebrates such great achievement. It serves as a reminder that the challenges which we face can be surmounted if we approach them with vision and determination.

I am particularly delighted to welcome Commissioner Bonino to this conference. She and I first discussed the idea for this conference about a year ago as we felt that we needed to get the relevant people together to examine and discuss what the Amsterdam Treaty could, and hopefully will, achieve for consumers. I know that the Commissioner had hoped to be able to stay for both days but is unable to because of an important engagement elsewhere. I am pleased, also, to say that my colleague, Mrs. Barbara Prammer, the President-in-Office of the Consumer Affairs Council, will be joining us to-morrow.

We will be assisted in our work during the Forum by Commissioner Bonino, the President of the Consumer Council, elected representatives, national, regional and Commission officials, consumer organisations, representatives from industry and from the academic world, all of whom are particularly well qualified to contribute to our discussions. I would like to thank you for agreeing to participate and for putting your knowledge and experience at our disposal.

I am pleased to welcome the representatives of the candidate States and EFTA also. In the world of the global village the importance of inter-State co-operation is growing. Those of us who are members of the EU and who have participated in the development of its framework of consumer protection feel that we have something to offer to our European neighbours. We also know that we can learn from their experiences.

Some commentators have judged the Amsterdam Treaty as the upper end of realism; others argued that it was the lower end of what could have been expected. Those of us, in Ireland, who cherish and promote the European ideal received an abrupt and unwelcome wake-up call at our Referendum last May on the Amsterdam Treaty at which nearly 40% of the electorate said "no" to the Treaty.

It seems clear that most of those who voted "no" did so, not because they understood the relevance of the Treaty's provisions and rejected them but because they could not see what relevance the Treaty has to their own lives and concerns. This reflects what has often been described as the democratic deficit in the EU. It is a worrying reality that many EU citizens do not expect the European institutions - the Commission, Council of Ministers and Parliament - to make any positive or enduring difference to their lives. For that reason, I am delighted to participate in this Forum to forge real links between the citizens of Europe, and the decision-making process in the EU. A better appreciation by the public of the real contribution of the EU to furthering the interests of consumers is one of the outcomes which I hope for from this seminar.

The new provisions on consumer protection in the Amsterdam Treaty demonstrate that consumer protection has come of age in the EU. The Treaty specifically addresses the interests of consumers and the need for a high level of consumer protection through the following commitments:

• protection of the health, safety and economic interests of consumers
• promoting their right to information and education, and
• enshrining their right to representation.

Whilst these advances are very significant in themselves, in my view a more important breakthrough has occurred in that consumer protection requirements must now be taken into account in defining and implementing all other Community policies. This will include trade, agriculture, food, and commercial policy, each of which in turn impacts on the lives and well-being of consumers.

This approach, which, in effect, requires the consumer-proofing of policies across a wide rang of public policy, accords closely with my own thinking, as Minister for Consumer Affairs in Ireland, on the way forward for consumer protection.

Our own domestic policy has been built in a somewhat piecemeal fashion over several decades. Central to the system of consumer protection has been the Director of Consumer Affairs and, while all the holders of that office have made important and impressive contributions, the danger exists that responsibility for the consumer can be seen to reside solely in that office. In recent years, it has become increasingly evident that consumer protection can only be ensured if the whole process of government is imbued with an appreciation of consumer interests and the priority they should be accorded in formulating policy.

I believe there is an increasing awareness of the role which consumer protection can play in a broader policy context, for example, in maximising economic efficiency. However, much remains to be done to ensure that consumer interests assume their proper place on the policy agenda and that our law, structures and procedures are adequate to the task of defending and promoting the consumer across the full range of government activity.

I feel I should make one further point about the future direction of consumer policy. I am delighted that we have among us many representatives of consumer organisations, including our own Consumers Association of Ireland. These organisations have played a vital role in advancing the consumer agenda in the past but I think their role will have to develop and their activities will have to expand if their full potential is to be realised in the future. I know that there are examples of best practice in this respect in some Member States and I believe we should all look to them to see how we can best ensure that the consumer's voice is heard loud and clear by public bodies.

Turning to the organisation of this seminar, we have attempted, in devising the four workshops, to identify how best to tease out and explore some of the themes I have just been talking about. The first workshop will examine the principles behind the new Treaty provisions and will explore how we might best devise a strategy for consumer's rights under the new Treaty. "Will it always be incumbent on consumer advocates and organisations to make the case for consumers or can we convince our colleagues in other areas of government to consider the benefits for them of a fair deal for consumers?".

The second workshop goes right to the heart of consumer concerns at this time. We, in Ireland, are proud of our reputation as a producer of good quality food and we intend to ensure that we preserve that reputation. As Minister for Consumer Affairs, I will work with my colleagues at national and European level to ensure the maximum protection of consumers in this vital area through adequate traceability methods, effective supervision of all stages of the food chain and comprehensive, informative and simple labelling. I might add that the Commission will this month launch a Food Safety Campaign, the objective of which is to inform and educate European consumers about the complex issues concerning food safety and their health. I warmly welcome the launch of this campaign.

We hope that the third workshop, which will focus on synergies and conflicts between consumer policy and other policies, will give us an opportunity to look at both sides of this interesting debate. We look forward to some stimulating comment and argument in the workshop.

Finally, in the fourth workshop, we hope to continue the theme of other recent conferences by looking at the problems of enforcement. We will have an opportunity to consider how to get the balance right between new legislation and ensuring that existing consumer legislation is rigorously enforced in the interests of consumers. We will also, hopefully, get some views on how to preserve the right balance between the interest of the EU as a whole and the rights of Member States. I think it is particularly appropriate that we should hear the views of regional governments on this subject as well as those of national governments and the EU, as enforcement requires a multi-layered approach involving Community, national and regional authorities.

We will have a report from the rapporteurs both this evening and tomorrow followed by question and answer sessions. We will conclude to-morrow with a panel discussion at which I hope we will be able to draw everything together and reach some broad conclusions about our work and where we might go from here.Again, I would like to thank you for agreeing to participate in this seminar and I wish you the best in your deliberations and discussions.