The Financial Services Consumer Panel is today hosting the first summit of Consumer Groups from across the EU specifically to discuss how to improve financial services for consumers throughout Europe. This comes at a crucial time, as EU-wide mortgage proposals and other possible changes to the set up of financial services in the EU are debated.

The aims of today's conference are to develop a pan-European network of consumer groups interested in financial services issues, to identify the key issues for consumers of financial services in different EU countries; to compare how the different groups are working to tackle those issues; to debate how to get a more effective voice for consumers in Europe; and to look at how consumer groups can work better across the EU in the future.

The European Commission has complained about the lack of consumer representatives to consult on financial services issues in evidence to the Treasury Select Committee in 2004: "The Commission should therefore not be blamed for the appalling lack of interest shown by consumer organisations" . Yet it is important that consumer groups do take an active part in EU policy debates. Callum McCarthy, Chairman of the FSA, at the FSA annual meeting earlier this year, referred to the lack of impact assessment carried out for European proposals . The Financial Services Consumer Panel wants to ensure that the positive and negative impact on consumers of policy changes are effectively communicated to EU policy-makers. It is hoped that the conference will be a step towards addressing this problem.

Chairman of the Consumer Panel, John Howard, said:
"This is the first time that consumer representatives across the enlarged EU have met to discuss how to influence new laws on financial services coming from Europe. It is crucial that consumer groups get together on this. Industry bodies are already heavily represented and lobbying hard over the implementation of the European Financial Services Action Plan, which will have a significant impact on all consumers of financial services in Europe and consumer groups must be at the table too."

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