The Impact of EU Norms and Policies on Consumer Protection Enforcement in Serbia

Pursuant to its 2008 Stabilization and Association Agreement governing the process of EU integration, Serbia is obliged to align its consumer protection standards (including those related to enforcement) with those of the EU. This article considers the overall approach to enforcement of consumer law in Serbia, focussing in particular on the extent to which EU enforcement principles have been successfully exported to Serbia and whether the goals of EU consumer policy have been achieved. It argues that the incorporation of EU norms has brought fundamental changes to Serbian enforcement mechanisms at a formal level, such as in relation to mediation processes as well as the introduction of injunctions for the protection of collective consumer interests. In practice, however, the impact of this incorporation is quite limited. A number of factors that restrict the practical effectiveness of the mediation processes and injunctions required by EU law are explored in the article, including weak sanctions, excessive reliance on poorly resourced consumer organizations, absence of a business culture of compliance or a sophisticated and determined consumer protection enforcement culture sufficiently grounded in expertise, as well as an overarching political, legislative, and institutional instability. These factors also undermine the general aim of EU policy to achieve effective consumer protection enforcement in the Serbian context

The Impact of EU Accession on the Legal Orders of New Member States and (Pre-) Candidate Countries: Hopes and Fears.

In 2004, ten countries joined the European Union as Member States and five others (Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, and Turkey) had or received (pre-)candidate country status. EU accession requires significant adaptations in the laws and policies of a country. In order to analyse the impact of these developments and support the countries concerned, the T.M.C. Asser Institute in The Hague initiated a project which started in early 2003 and concluded during the Dutch EU presidency in October 2004. The fifteen country reports resulting from that project, written by national experts and updated by the volume editors, are presented in this book. As a comparative study of these countries, this is an excellent guide for the preparation of the national legal orders for EU accession, for briefing and training civil servants, judges, practitioners, officials of international organizations, and will be of great interest to academics and post-graduate students