New European Union Consumer Protection Legislation and the Implementation in Macedonia

The EU aims to achieve a high level of consumer protection for its products and services. The sphere of consumer rights has an impact on the identity of internal market, which with almost 500 million consumers, is one of the largest in the world. The EU legislation sets up general safety regulation for services, foodstuff and non food products. The Treaty on the functioning of the European Union promotes a high level of consumer protection and underlines the importance of activities and measures in the field of consumer rights. According to the Treaty, consumer protection shall be taken into account in defining and implementing other EU policies and activities. This papers aim to elaborate on the situation in the sphere of consumer protection and to give some recommendations for further activities. Also, the paper aims to initiate a wide process of debate about the consumer policy and legislation. The importance of the subject justifies it. Beside high level of protection, the European Commission annually receives more than 1500 notifications of unsafe products. With the intention to create better protection, The Commission proposed a new Directive on consumer rights, that shall merge four existing directives. The Republic of Macedonia as a candidate state has been making efforts to improve its legislation and activities in the field of consumer protection. The last European Commission progress reports comments on the present situation in the field on consumer protection. In the future, Macedonia has to continue with the activities in the area of consumer protection