Protection of Consumers on the EU Digital Single Market : Virtual or Real One?

This paper provides an overview of the position of consumers on the EU Digital Single Market under de lege lata and de lege ferenda EU legislation. By fulfilling the goals of the EU Digital Single Market Strategy from 2015, the European Commission has released two proposals containing harmonised rules for the supply of digital content and online sales of goods that should significantly boost the growth of the Digital Single Market. It is estimated that the adoption of Proposals will increase Intra-EU exports by around €1 billion, while the overall real EU GDP will gain about €4 billion per year. Both consumers and traders should be more confident about their rights and duties when concluding online contracts, which should encourage between 7.8 and 13 millions of consumers to start buying online cross-border. The goal of the Union is to “remain competitive on global markets” by answering to challenges of technologically driven economy and by integrating the “digital dimension into the EU single internal market”