Protecting Europe’s consumers: a ceaseless battle and a thankless task

Date: 10/10/02

By Peter Chapman

Peter Chapman asks Jim Murray, director of the European Consumers' Bureau, about the challenges facing his organisation

WHEN David Byrne was named European consumer commissioner in 1999, The Irish Times reported that his natural chef de cabinet should be Jim Murray, Ireland's other champion for the EU consumer.

Murray, head of the European Consumers' Bureau, usually referred to by its French acronym of BEUC, says it was just a bit of mischief from the paper's then Brussels correspondent, Paddy Smyth.

But the smile on his face tells that he was clearly flattered by the idea.

Three years on and the former Irish government official is still on the outside of the Commission - orchestrating the never-ending campaign to ensure consumers are remembered in EU rules and regulations.

Behind his messy desk in BEUC's modest HQ on Brussels' Avenue de Tervuren, the clutter hides letters to ministers, briefing papers, press releases and speeches on every conceivable topic from the Common Agricultural Policy and GM labelling to electronic commerce.

A computer screen also shows hundreds of emails from his 19-strong team and the wider world.

With all that to contend with, Murray admits he often finds it difficult to keep track of the details of each issue. Instead, he admits to focusing more on whatever is the 'most pressing issue of the day'.

Today it is the urgent need to ensure customers gain from natural gas and electricity liberalisation. Tomorrow? Who knows?

This perpetual motion means that reliving past victories is a luxury. And it is nigh-on impossible to know for sure whether BEUC actually helps change the minds of the EU policy elite.

But Murray is convinced it does.

Before his arrival, BEUC helped take the lead out of petrol and succeeded in getting a reference to consumer's needs inserted into the Maastricht Treaty.

The latest example of its clout, he says, is the Commission's recent attempt to break the stranglehold of car manufacturers on dealerships.

The carmakers fought bitterly to avoid the upheaval that Mario Monti, the competition commissioner, was pushing for. BEUC was his most fervent ally.

As lobbying 'battles' go, this was as bloody as it gets.

Murray quotes another Irish son, the first Duke of Wellington, who reputedly said after the Battle of Waterloo: 'By God! I don't think it would have done if I had not been there.'

'I don't want to sound like the Iron Duke,' laughs Murray, 'But I think, in this issue, we made a difference.'

So, where are the next battlefields?

One cause for concern, says Murray, is the pitifully low levels of service offered by e-commerce.

'In a worst-case scenario people may go off it entirely because they are having too many bad experiences,' he says.

Murray points to the abject failure of a planned system agreed last year by BEUC and employer federation UNICE, to boost consumers' fragile confidence in buying over the internet.

This would have helped to police the plethora of 'trust marks' plastered on websites by companies to reassure customers that it is safe to shop online.

But since then, says Murray, precisely nothing has happened.

It's not UNICE's fault, he insists. Instead, he points the blame at individual technology firms who have shunned the idea.

'If this thing does not proceed we will just have to get a directive from the Commission,' he adds, with a steely look.

BEUC is also keeping a close eye on the Commission's green paper on consumer protection, even though he confides that he missed a deadline for submitting comments.

'If I thought they were going to make up their minds overnight we would have got it in on time,' he jokes.

The key issue here is David Byrne's idea for a general directive that would require all companies to trade fairly with consumers in the single market.

Murray is far more enthusiastic about this approach than many business groups, although he admits details still need fleshing out - such as what system to use to decide what goes on the list of unfair practices, how to keep it up to date and how to ensure it is evenly applied across the Union.

The role of voluntary industry codes of conduct in the new regime - and their legal status - also needs to be clarified.

Meanwhile, financial services will be one of BEUC's future priorities. But Murray says the Enron affair and collapsing share portfolios is not the focus.

Instead, he questions the desire of EU powers to change the way banks and insurance companies are supervised.

He fears moves to extend the so-called 'Lamfalussy approach' to these sectors will give new powers to unelected groups meeting in behind-the-scenes committees and take them away from the European Parliament - a body that is usually eager to listen to BEUC's point of view.

'I know, straight off, that we are going to look at it,' he admits.

On the Common Agricultural Policy, Murray says far more reforms are needed than promised so far from Brussels. Unfortunately, he warns, the chances of major change are slim until the EU changes the rules on how agricultural policy is set.

Until then, he fears, EU farm policy will continue to spend billions on badly targeted subsides that lead to over-production of unwanted food, with the subsequent flood of excess produce on world markets hurting developing countries by artificially depressing prices.

It's not all just about Brussels. Murray is also European chair for the fledgling Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), which meets with policymakers from both sides of the ocean later this month in Washington.

The body is meant to do for consumers what the bigger, richer Transatlantic Business Dialogue does for CEOs: speak to the policymakers and influence their decisions.

Murray is realistic about what the TACD can achieve, but 'it is worth the effort'. For example, he says, web-savvy American consumer bodies have lent BEUC know-how in the e-commerce field that it would have struggled to find in Europe.

Despite all the good work by his organisation, it appears some people are not satisfied.

Murray admits he gets irritated by his group's critics. Many question BEUC's right to stand up for consumers.

'I never asked BEUC to represent me,' is a common mantra over the conference dinner table, he says.

Even more predictable is the comment from businessmen and politicians 'usually no more than ten minutes into the conversation that 'I am a consumer too'.

The press is also apt to give BEUC a rocky ride, he complains.

Murray prints off a thinly disguised attack on BEUC in the latest edition of satirical Brussels-based website The Sprout.

And The Wall Street Journal Europe even included BEUC in a stinging front-page editorial about the groups the EU pays to criticise it.

Yes, BEUC does get a €600,000 a year grant from the EU's coffers, admits Murray.

But most of the group's budget comes from national associations that have millions of subscribers.

So how legitimate is BEUC?

'Our views are at least as legitimate as those of a newspaper like European Voice,' he retorts. 'And in any case,' he insists, 'no one is forced to listen'.

Jim Murray, director of the European Consumers' Bureau (BEUC), talks about the challenges facing his organisation.

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