European Commission publishes Consumer Markets Scoreboard

In September, the European Commission published the 2016 edition of the EU Consumer Markets Scoreboard, which provides an overview of EU citizens’ assessment of the performance of 42 key consumer markets across the 28 Member States, Norway and Iceland. This edition of the Scoreboard depicts an overall improvement in consumers’ trust and in their assessments as to whether markets meet their expectations, which mainly drives the increase in the Market Performance Indicator (MPI).

Market performance remains uneven and there remains considerable difference in the assessments across different Member States and sectors. An in-depth sociodemographic analysis, conducted for the first time, shows that the assessment of market performance is mostly influenced by the financial situation of consumers and their education. There is considerable continuity in terms of the rankings of both the goods markets and services markets assessed. In general, there is a wider dispersion in the performance of services markets across EU countries, than is the case for goods markets. The market for electricity services, water supply, railways transport, mortgages and mobile telephone show the widest MPI dispersion EU-wide.


EU Commission says that there are persistent issues in key utility markets, telecommunications and retail financial services markets, which underline the importance of the current drive to put the consumer at the heart of the Digital Single Market, the Energy Union, and the on-going work following up on the Green Paper on Retail Financial Services in the context of the Action Plan for a Capital Markets Union.

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