Financial crisis and consumers: breaking down barriers to build up new ones?

Abstract

The Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, as its predecessors did, proclaims the protection of consumers as one of the objectives of the internal market. A vast series of norms, secondary legislation, contain provisions aimed at this purpose, conferring upon national authorities responsibility for their implementation, including the removal of any barriers to these rights. However, these norms were not always correctly implemented in national statutory law, and as a consequence by courts. The financial crisis that started in 2007 brought new perspectives on the protection of consumers in Europe. This chapter analyses the protection of consumers as European Union (EU) citizens within financial markets in Spain, a country deeply hit by the financial crisis and subsequent economic crisis.