Research On The Integration Of EU Consumer Protection Law

EU formulates a large number of treaties and directives for constructing internal market and protecting consumers. Although they play significant roles as expected, yet the complex prescriptions cause confusions among consumers and businesses and also lead to difficulties in the course of legal application because of their inherent inconsistencies and vagueness. In order to better protect consumers, balance the interests of all parties and promote economic healthily and sustainable, there is a need to study EU consumer protection laws, to find the a regular pattern in the laws and strengthen the degree of integration in consumer protection laws, which also can be a reference to Chinese consumer protection law legislation.This thesis begins with the concept of the consumer. And then from the dual perspective of theory and practice, the thesis makes a study of EU consumer law and the relevant issues by analyzing the legal provisions of EU and its Member States as well as the cases of ECJ. This thesis is divided into three parts:introduction, main body and conclusion. The part of introduction is intended to elaborate the importance of consumer protection laws and the reasons why the thesis concentrates on EU consumer protection law. Main body consists of five parts:the concept of EU consumer protection law, the legislative integration process of consumer protection laws, consumer rights, relations between consumer protection law and EU internal market and a summary and reflection of consumer protection law. The first chapter focuses on the analysis and comparison of various concepts of the consumer in EU different laws, revealing the characteristics of the consumer and clarifying a unity and a clear consumer concept is necessary. This chapter also discussed the concept of business and whether consumer protection law is an independent branch of the legal system. In chapter two, the provisions of consumer protection law in the EU Treaties are used to study the development and integration of the EU consumer protection laws, The third chapter focuses on the right to information and the right to cancel. The reason for studying the right to information is because of its important position in the consumer rights; the right to cancel is unique in EU consumer law, in particular, its reference value to our legislation. Of course, even in the EU consumer rights protection law, the provisions of these two rights are not perfect; so there is a need for further improvement. Chapter four mainly discussed the relationship between the consumer protection law and free trade. Consumer protection law is in conflict with free trade, but the EU succeeds in overcoming the contradictions between the two through a number of measures, As an result, the internal market makes consumers the biggest beneficiary, while consumer protection does great good to EU integration. Chapter five of the paper is based on the above parts. According to the advantages and disadvantages of EU consumer protection law, the future unified consumer protection laws are suggested. As the end-result, this chapter also conducts reflections and recommendations to our national consumer protection law. The conclusion part will draw a conclusion of this thesis, holding the view that the integration of consumer protection laws is important to the EU internal market, which should get a better concern with the people in theory and practice field so as to create a sound legal environment for the development of our national consumer protection law.