The Status of Consumers in European Liberalisation Directives

Europe has gone through a wave of liberalisation in the last two decades. Measures were first adopted to that effect in the telecommunications sector, which has since then become the sector of electronic communications. They were extended, afterwards, in their substance, to other economic activities with similar characteristics (the so called ‘public utilities’). An important issue in consumer policy is whether these measures have done any good to consumers. The latter are often mentioned in the preamble to these instruments. Somehow, they form part of the ‘justification tool kit’ put forward by the European Commission to advance the liberalisation agenda. But what is concretely their situation in the liberalisation era?