Internal Market and Services Commissioner McCreevy and Health and Consumer Protection Commissioner Kyprianou agreed: "Financial products and services are of crucial importance for consumers in their daily lives. We are delighted that representatives of consumer associations from across the EU are showing their commitment to greater dialogue with the Commission on these issues by participating in the Financial Services Consumer Group. Consumer involvement is essential to the creation of an integrated retail financial services market that serves all of our citizens – industry, SMEs and consumers alike."
In this first meeting, the Commission discussed with the Group a number of
important current topics - the Commission's policy priorities in financial
services up to 2010, the latest policy and legislative developments in the area
of consumer and mortgage credit, the creation of the Single Euro Payments area,
the Green Paper on asset management and issues of corporate governance.
More
information about the Financial Services Consumer Group, its composition and
agenda can be found at:
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/finances/fscg/index_en.htm
The Financial Services Consumer Group has been established as a sub-group of the already existing European Consumer Consultative Group (ECCG)), the Commission’s main forum for engaging with consumer organisations (see http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/cons_org/associations/committ/index_en.htm),
and its creation was included in the Commission's White Paper on Financial
Services Policy 2005-2010 (see IP/05/1529).
More
information on the European Commission's general policy in financial services is
available at: