Yesterday the European Commission adopted a European Retail Action Plan and a Green Paper launching consultation on unfair trading practices in the B2B food and non-food supply chain. These initiatives list as one of their priorities the need to empower consumers through better information, as well as to improve accessibility to retail services. Clearly, further actions of the EU institutions in this field will heavily influence European consumers.
The idea is that the European Commission will set up a permanent Group on Retail Competitiveness that will be charged with further development of "specific objectives for the areas identified, monitor progress achieved,
issue recommendations to ensure full implementation of the actions
included in this Plan and, where necessary, will advise the Commission
on additional new actions that could be proposed". (Commission adopts a European Retail Action Plan and consults on unfair trading practices) The next three months are also devoted to receiving and analysing responses to the public consultation on unfair trading practices in the B2B sector (open until 30 April 2013).
