Research Papers

The purpose of this contribution is to provide an analytical survey and to explore the impacts the European consumer law directives, especially Directive 2011/836EU on consumer rights, and the recently published proposal for an optional Common European Sales Law (CESL) have on the evolution of the national consumer laws, consumer behavior and cross-border trade. The aim of both the consumer law directives and the Common European Sales Law is to boost consumer confidence which is inevitable for cross-border transactions. Consumer trust and confidence can be enhanced through obligatory legislative measures, optional instruments and other means of confidence building mechanisms, such as codes of conduct, trust marks, etc. The paper therefore consists of four parts. Part one provides a brief discussion on the evolution of European consumer legislation from the point of view of searching for enhancing consumer confidence. Part two of the paper deals with the proposed optional instrument CESL and examines its possible effects on consumer confidence, especially in cross-border transactions. The third part is devoted to the issue of non-legislative means of building consumer confidence in the market. The last part of the paper provides a comparative analysis of the possible advantages, disadvantages and effects of the different measures and means discussed in the paper and based on the findings proposes a possible new mixture of measures to enhance consumer confidence in the internal market of the European Union.