The consumer markets scoreboard: Monitoring consumer outcomes in the single market

Abstract

One of the main conclusions of the Commission’s communication on the single market review is that the market has to be more responsive to the expectations and concerns of citizens and more able to adjust to the challenges of globalisation. In the face of these challenges more attention needs to be paid to the final outcomes affecting EU citizens and not just to the legal tools. Policies need to be more evidence-based and outcome-oriented. Better monitoring and evaluation of outcomes for citizens is a priority for the Commission to move to the next stage of the single market. While better monitoring is important because it will help drive better policymaking and regulation, it is also essential in itself as a way of demonstrating to citizens that their concerns are taken into account. It is in their role as consumers that most of our citizens experience the single market on a daily basis. Their consumer experience therefore influences their views on the single market and the EU as a whole. Better outcomes for consumers are the ultimate goal of all single market policies and the litmus test for their success. In an increasingly consumer-oriented, globalised economy, a single market that responds more efficiently to consumer demands also helps to deliver an innovative and competitive economy.The single market is not exclusively an economic project. It also safeguards certain social standards. Similarly, consumer interests cannot be exclusively defined in terms of economic efficiency. Citizens expect single market policy to deliver socially acceptable outcomes, sometimes at the expense of economic efficiency. For example, concern for human health, the environment and safety means that consumer products are strictly regulated. There is also a consensus that affordable access to certain essential commercially provided services, vital for economic and social inclusion, should be guaranteed to all, wherever they live. The concept of ‘market malfunctioning’ should therefore be understood in the Scoreboard context as covering both inefficient allocation of resources and a failure to deliver these outcomes.Evidence on the performance of the single market for consumers is however largely absent at present. Developing the indicators to better monitor this demand-side aspect of the single market is, therefore, key to the new Commission approach. The Scoreboard will contribute to the general monitoring exercise by trying to detect those cases where signs of market malfunctioning are linked to unsatisfactory conditions of the consumer environment. The data gathered will not only help deliver a better consumer policy, but will feed through to all policies that affect consumers, ensuring the better integration of consumer interests into all EU policies.