As part of its supporting tasks, the Commission is charged to produce and make publicly available every two years a report on the market trends that might affect consumers’ interests. This report also provides an overview of the actions carried out under the CPC Regulation in the past two years and includes information on statistics exchanged by means of alerts.
The second biennial report was published in July 2024. It found that the activities of the CPC network in 2022 and 2023 mainly focused on addressing consumer issues linked to the digital and green transitions. In particular fairness of online markets with regards to the transparency of prices, influencer marketing, artificial intelligence or illegal green claims and greenwashing, will continue to determine the priorities of the CPC network for the years to come. In addition, data collected from the coordinated compliance checks (“sweeps”) shows a continuation of the trend from previous years of low compliance only 50% on average – with basic consumer rights.
The CPC network identified a number of concrete market trends that are likely to affect consumers’ interests across the single market in the foreseeable future. They can be grouped into 4 areas:
- Manipulative practices and use of artificial intelligence in digital markets,
- Emerging concerns related to the energy and inflation crises having negative effects on consumers,
- Unfair commercial practices and compromise of consumer rights in sustainable economy,
- Increased globalisation leading to proliferation of similar harmful market practices around the globe.
You can download the full report below.