Greek consumers feel defenseless against their own merchants
BRUSSELS – The Greek consumer feels largely defenseless against merchants, according to a study of the European Commission that was released on Monday, just ahead of this Friday’s observance of Consumer Day. According to the survey, four in five Greek consumers feel that their rights are not adequately protected when they are contesting something with a merchant. And nearly half of them feel their rights would be better served if they did their shopping in another European country. The only others trailing behind the Greek consumers are the Portuguese, while in most other European countries the vast majority of citizens are confident that their consumer rights would be protected were they to enter into a dispute with a local business owner. But where do they turn for assistance in such a case? In all the countries the consumers prefer to turn to consumer associations, though the percentage in Greece is rather low. In response to a question on whether they would choose to address their grievances to such associations, a state agency, the mass media, members of national parliaments or the European Parliament, or the Internet, Greek consumers outpolled all other European consumers in responding «none of the above.» The survey notes that consumers in northern Europe are more confident that their rights will be protected than those in the south, with 82 percent of Finnish and 75 percent of British consumers believing their rights to be well protected. Moreover, the vast majority of European consumers express serious doubts over whether their rights would be protected if they were to shop in another EU country, with Finnish and Irish consumers being the most confident in their own national authorities. That is far from being the case for Greek consumers, who feel more confident and better served when doing their shopping abroad. In fact, the European Commission is urging Europeans to do more cross-border shopping. «This evidence of a real lack of consumer confidence in shopping across borders shows that we must do more to provide consumers with a high standard of protection throughout the EU,» declared David Byrne, the EU’s health and consumer protection commissioner, on Monday. Obviously the commissioner did not take into account the case of Greeks, who unlike the rest of the Europeans, prefer to do their shopping in any other EU country than in their home territory.
