Presentation of the Permanent Forum of Support, Training and Discussion of the Consumers Associations

The PERMANENT FORUM OF EUROPEAN LEGISLATION, implemented by ADICAE, Asociación de Usuarios de Bancos, Cajas y Seguros (Spain), along with the INKA Consumers Association (Greece), Movimiento Consumatori (Italy) and Verbraucher-Zentrale Hamburg e.V. (Germany), is gathering the reality that the European single market involves many possibilities for the European consumers, but also implies many risks, specially in the context of financial products and services, that are gradually more complex and changing.

With this objetive, that the PERMANENT FORUM has established a Network of judirical, economic and social Advisers, that belong to associations of consumers, citizens, proffessionals and universities, at a European level, with a Permanent Committee of advisers, recruited by the partners, and a network of advisers aimed to specific studies all over the European Union.

This Permanent Committee is preparing Dicta about every one of the twelve subjects that this ambitious Forum has started to deal with:

1. European and national legislation of financial services
2. Consumer credit
3. Mortgage credit
4. Over-indebtedness.
5. Distance means of payment and financial services at distant banking
6. Small shareholder as consumers:
7. Investment in tangible goods
8. Claims and insurance policy covers:
9. Guarantee Funds in financial services:
10. General conditions of financial contracts
11. Access to justice of users of financial services.
12. Behaviour, transparency and self-regulation codes

The dicta will be distributed as the Permanent Forum position to all the European Consumers Associations, to the General Directions of the European Commission, and to the work teams. They will also be published in an International Bulletin, and distributed at European and international level, being distributed to the press of the Permanente Committee member states, and also, the Dicta will be spread at Courses, Fora, and Advice Committees in the EU, to the people that assist and participate in them.

The PERMANENT FORUM OF EUROPEAN LEGISLATION, has developed a website http://www.adicae.net/foropermanente , where the Dicta are being published, and by means of this website, detail issues of the subjects to investigate will be discussed in the Internet Forum.

On October 2004, an International Symposium will be held. It will deal with the “Consumers Demand in Europe” subject, with a join exposition of the dicta and other discussion issues, with face to face participation of the advisers of the Permanent Forum, in order to train those present in the utilization of these dicta.

The PERMANENT FORUM OF EUROPEAN LEGISLATION has established a methodology of a compared analysis of legislation in the EU, Community Regulation and extraction of the consumers regulations demands, with a politics of maximum demands (state by state), and not of minimum demands of all member states as a whole. This method will be exposed and propagated at the International Symposium.

The main objective is the creation of discussion and dicta issuing dynamics that supports European consumers associations, and that will be spread in European Union advice committes where these associations are taking part in and in some other international fora.

Our intention is to obtain a Forum where all interested people could provide their collaboration in consumers protection defence, and in which we would really like to count on your contribution.

You can access to the Spanish version of the News Bulletin, by clicking here.

This project is being sponsored by the DG SANCO of the European Commission and the National Institute of Consumption of Spain.