The ‘New Deal’ for Consumers: Towards More Effective Protection?

Abstract

The article analyses to what extent the New Deal for Consumers can represent a step forward in the effective protection of the consumer. Although there is a path to overcome the separation between the definition of rights at European level and remedies at a national level and to identify common criteria in the application of sanctions, more courageous measures would be needed. In particular, what is being proposed here is to link the effectiveness of the protection with the real balance between the rights and obligations of consumers and professionals to provide solutions that allow, in compliance with the principle of proportionality, to place the consumer in the same situation in which they would be found in the absence of the violation.