|
The aim is to enable the information exchange between the various national authorities and equally serve as an information repository in order to improve EU-cooperation in the field of consumer protection enforcement.
National authorities will be able to exchange information and cooperate with counterparts in other Member States as easily and seamlessly as with other authorities in their own country. Commission shall equally serve as an information repository, maintaining an electronic database (the Consumer Protection Cooperation System) in which it shall store and process the information it receives.
This System pursues three main objectives:
- To act as a secure central repository (referred to as a “database” in the regulation) of information, to be accessed by the competent authorities
- To act as a secure communication system between the competent authorities
- To include remaining functionalities that are necessary to allow for a proper execution of the actions defined in the Regulation and satisfy specific needs of the competent authorities
Technical Functionalities & Approach
The Consumer Protection Cooperation System will be hosted in and operated by the Commission’s Data Centre. The design of the technical functionalities and approach will be in line with the Commission’s strategy with regard to the IT architecture and whenever possible, make use of the horizontal pan-European eGovernment and infrastructure services.
Next to this, all effort will contribute to the further development of these services. Conformity of the solution to these strategies is an obligatory element of the project's design phase.
Potential Beneficiaries
- Benefits for the sector:
- Real-time operational cooperation between competent authorities to detect, investigate and stop rogue traders from harming the consumers.
- Effective monitoring of the application of the Regulation.
- Benefits for the national Member States administrations:
- Access to information that is relevant to investigate and stop infringements to consumer protection law.
- A common platform for information exchange and cooperation with the national authorities in other EU countries and, ultimately, in third countries.
- A common platform to enable discharge of legal obligations under the regulation in the most efficient way possible.
- Assistance during the decision making process.
- More statistics data, quicker and of better quality Interoperability between different services.
- High level of security for transmission and exchange of data.
- Benefits for citizens / enterprises:
- Effective response to cross-border rogue traders targeting consumers illegally. Gain for consumers and honest businesses.
- Higher level of consumer and business confidence in the Internal Market
- Enhance e-commerce within the Internal Market.
- Speed up and cost efficiency of the administrative operations.
- Increase pan-European (e-) business.
The role of IDABC
TESTA (Trans European Services for Telematics between Administrations) secure network in combination with web-services will be used depending on the Member States' architecture.
CIRCA (Communication & Information Resource Centre Administrator) will be used for project-management, execution purposes and active bilateral discussions with Member States.
Other horizontal pan-European eGovernment and infrastructure services will be evaluated when appropriate and possible.
Key Data
|
Project start date
|
2004
|
|
Project completion date
|
2008
|
|
Project status
|
ongoing
|
|
SANCO Consumer affairs
IDABC budget
|
€ 220,000
€ 1,200,000
|
|
Service in charge
|
Directorate General for Health & Consumer Protection, unit B5
|
|
Responsible action manager
|
MOLNAR Tamas
|
|
Contact
|
|
|
Countries involved
|
All EU member states
|
|
Public websites
|
|
Documentation
|
Print
