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About us » Annual reports » Summary 2000
Summary 2000The Consumer Protection Board (later Board) is a national authority which main task is to protect the legitimate rights of consumers and represent their interests, develop and implement provisions of the UN Guidelines, Consumer Protection Act and EU Consumer Policy. The main activities of the Board are as follows:
The Board constitutes an inexpensive alternative to the civil courts and the decisions of the Board serve as guidelines for trade enterprises. The Board is entitled to impose fines and prescriptive orders in case of the violation of legislation. Together with other state and local government institutions the Board also monitors the following fields: product safety, misleading advertising, consumer contracts, public services, product-labeling etc. The main objective of the Board is to help and protect the consumers to make a conscious choice and to render help in infringements of the basic rights. The budget of the Consumer Protection Board was 6,8 million EEK and by the end of 2000 the Board had staff of 56 together with officials in 14 county divisions. Almost all officials were attested in the end of last year. The total amount of controlled enterprises in 2000 was 3545. The total sum of the determined fines was 1,34 million EEK (approximately 6400 euro). During the market surveillance was controlled accordance to different requirement of following goods:
Mainly infringements were in connection with infringements of labeling requirements. In 2000 the Board increased the importance of testing foodstuffs and non-foodstuffs. During the year were ordered 220 foodstuffs tests from which in 38 cases were found infringement. The number of tested non-foodstuffs was 272 and infringements were found in 103 cases. In the field of services surveillance the main activities were in following areas as:
In 30% of controlled enterprises were found infringements. The main problems were contracts and contract conditions. Because of increasing of using banking and tourism services is increased also number of problems in these fields. 1939 complaints were received from consumers. Half of them touched upon the trade problems and the another services (mostly water, heating, rent etc). The most frequent problems in trade were in connection with footwear and home appliances - lacking the usage guidelines or the guidelines were not correctly translated. In 2000 one of the topical problems was only bad quality of petrol 95E and 98E and diesel oil, their incongruous to the Economy Minister degree No 45 from 29.12.97 oil fuel quality requirements and sales management. The Board forwarded to the administrative court 32 cases, which were in connection with infringements of selling procedures of alcohol and tobacco products. The obligatory prescriptions were challenged to the administrative court in 10 cases.
International Co-operation The Board has good relations with international consumer protection organizations, such as the Consumers International, the Consumer Research Centre at Louvain-la-Neuve University, the Association of Consumer Unions of Germany, and all Nordic Consumer agencies. The specialists of the Board taken part in lot of international seminars and workshops, which were organized by different international organizations and where almost all the consumer protection matters, were covered. The Board is involved in Phare CICPP III 1998-2000 programme. Under the programme were organized several activities - workshop on alternative dispute systems; conference on enforcement of consumer laws, redress and handling of complaints. Besides in the frame of CICPP programme the Board had opportunities to organize in co-operation with the Consumer Research Centre at Louvain-la-Neuve University the "High-level" meeting in Tallinn. The meeting was a high-level working seminar, with limited participation and concrete results. Participants were ministers of state, senior officials of state institutions in charge of consumer affairs and experts on consumer policy from central and east European countries and the EU Commission. The meeting was a forum where was evaluated the progress made to date in Applicant Countries and to recommend future initiatives which should be envisaged by the EU, as it assists these countries to prepare for membership of the European Union. The high-level meeting marked the end of five years of the Phare programme on consumer policy. It is thus a last occasion for state representatives to communicate to the European Commission their future requirements for technical and legislative assistance in the area of consumer law and policy. The Board is according to the Product Safety Act the national contact point concerning rapid exchange information on dangerous goods between other EU candidate countries. The CPB has already participated actively in PHARE TRAPEX project. In 2000 improved the co-operation between different supervisory authorities (National Inspection for Health Protection; State Veterinary and Food Inspection; Technical Inspectorate; National Police Board; National Standards Center; Estonian Insurance Supervisory Authority; Estonian Tourism Board; Estonian Energy Market Inspectorate; Bank Inspection of Estonian Bank). During the year 2000 the Board received 105 notifications on dangerous goods from 6 countries and the Board forwarded to the TRAPEX coordination center in Budapest 6 notifications on dangerous products discovered in Estonian Market.
Twinning On June 22, 2000 was signed the two year lasting EU Twinning covenant between EU Commission, Consumer Protection Board, Swedish National Consumer Agency (Konsumentverket) and the Greece Ministry of Development. The broad objective of the project is the improvement of the organisational efficiency and effectiveness of the Consumer Protection Board. The general emphasis will be given to strengthen the market surveillance functions as required in EC internal market legislation and consumer protection programme as whole, using EU guidelines and practices. During the two year is planned approximately 20 different events from which in 2000 were organized three of them - 2 study visits to the Swedish Consumer Agency and one study visit to Greece to the Ministry of Development (Consumer General Secretary).
Consumer Protection Policy The Board works out the consumer protection policy and co-operates actively with the Estonian Consumers' Union and the consumer protection units of local governments. The Consumer Protection Council continued its work as advisory body to the Board on consumer policy, which organizes the regular meetings. It is the main body through which the local governments and voluntary organizations can participate in the decision making process for developing the consumer protection policy on government level. The main discussed topics were banking services, post services and prices on water. The Advertising Council discussed mainly following advertising law infringements as misleading advertising and alcohol as well as tobacco products. Besides were found and discussed using of vulnerable group in advertisements, infringements on disparaging advertising, gambling advertising and food products advertising ignoring of good business standards. The Board made 10 obligatory prescriptions and in 9 cases the Board called the entrepreneurs attention to stop the infringements.
Information and education A shortcut to advice is the free telephone consulting service, operating working daily. Experts of the Board provide advice and information about consumer rights, warranties, required labeling, and other safety and marking requirements. In 2000 were registered 7014 consultations in the free information telephone. By the Board specialist in head office and in county divisions were consulted more 4939 consumers. The Board publishes already several years information leaflets such as: How to buy , How to act in order to teach consumers to be critical and active and to give them practical tips to make their choices in everyday life. In 2000 was published 2 information booklets - Infoteek (introduces the consumers self information tool called TarKa; the Board introducing leaflet in English. In 1998 the Board started the publishing of self-information files, called TarKa. It consists from different collections, where are overviews about different groups of good(s) or service(s) from the consumers' point of views. One can find general descriptions, qualities, practical tips and legal advice's for buying a good or service. In 2000 was published 3 files - "Free time electronics", "Textiles and footwear", "Free time and sport wears". The Board made in the IT field big step ahead that is improved by supplying almost all of the county divisions with the Internet connection. The web site http://www.tka.riik.ee gives a good overview about the Board as well as practical tips to consumers and legislation for entrepreneurs. In the end of 2000 the board renewed the layout of the website and included two more links - information for entrepreneurs and Russian version of the Boards' homepage. Also was opened Intranet for the changing inside documents and information between Board officials. |