Brussels hosted last 20 October the fourth meeting of the Group of Experts on Consumer Complaints, at the invitation of the Health and Consumer Protection Directorate-General (DG SANCO) of the European Commission. Since the beginning of the year this group has been advising the EC on the elaboration and proposed Europe-wide adoption of a harmonised methodology to classify and report consumer complaints.
The meeting was once again attended by representatives of consumer associations and support services, many of them government-related, from various European countries, as well as national regulatory authorities from a number of member States operating in different economic sectors. ANACOM in particular was represented as co-chair of the IRG working group dedicated to the interests of electronic communications service end users.
The main point on the working agenda was the presentation and discussion of results from the public consultation conducted by the Commission from last 7 July to 5 October on the proposed methodology, which had high participation with 165 responses, mainly from national authorities, industry and regulatory bodies. In this regard, the EC announced that the responses received will be posted on the DG-SANCO website and that the recommendation on the harmonised methodology for classifying and reporting complaints, for voluntary adoption, will likely be published in mid-December. The Group of Experts also had occasion, due to the amendment proposals and suggestions received in the consultation, to decide whether to include them in recommended methodology.
The work was closed with the expectation on the European Commission’s part that to monitor the methodology’s application, and for same to be subject to improvement whenever needed, it would be very useful to keep the Group of Experts as a formal advisory body for the Commission even if its current composition is changed.
