AGE has joined forces with other NGOs in a campaign led by the European Consumers’ Organisation (BEUC) addressing a joint open letter to the European Commission urging them to move forward the discussions on Collective Redress which have being lasting for a long time without any concrete outcomes.
A mechanism of collective redress would allow all European citizens to bring a group action before the court and ask for an illegal behavior to be stopped and for compensation to be paid to victims in national and cross-border cases. If applied in other areas of law, collective redress could be beneficial not only for consumers, but also for workers, vulnerable groups, victims of age discrimination, people suffering from environmental damage etc.
In this joint letter the coalition of 12 NGOs underline that the right to compensation, the right to access to justice and the right to effective remedy should not remain theoretical. In practice, many citizens are unable to exercise these rights due to the inadequacy of existing means of redress in mass claim situations and the cross-border dimension is lacking. The civil society strongly believes that the possible abuses should no longer be used as an excuse which jeopardizes the effective enforcement of citizens’ rights as the shortcoming have long been identified and solutions have been proposed. Up till now, the lack of action from the Commission allows wrong-doers to retain illegal profits and fails to create the incentives for fair competition in the Internal Market.
Last Updated on Tuesday, 31 May 2011 16:11
