knowledge 8 December 2025 |

What businesses need to know about the EU’s New Consumer Agenda

Context and priorities

The Agenda identifies four priority areas: digital fairness and online consumer protection; sustainable consumption; an action plan for consumers in the single market; and enforcement and redress.  Two cross‑cutting priorities are prominent: better protection of consumers in vulnerable situations and simplification of administrative burdens for businesses.

Digital fairness and online consumer protection

The Agenda builds on the Commission’s Digital Fairness Fitness Check of EU consumer law, a comprehensive assessment concluded in 2024 of whether existing consumer rules are fit for purpose in an evolving digital environment.  The Fitness Check identified shortcomings and problematic practices in the digital environment that require action at EU level to fill gaps in consumer protection, reduce legal uncertainty for businesses, prevent regulatory fragmentation and facilitate enforcement.

• The Commission is to propose a Digital Fairness Act in Q4 2026. It is expected to target dark patterns that can unfairly steer consumer choices, addictive design features, problematic practices by influencers, unfair personalisation that takes advantage of consumers’ vulnerabilities and problematic features in social media, video games and e-commerce. 

For businesses, this points to the potential upcoming need for early design reviews, clearer disclosures, and auditable governance over recommendation and personalisation systems.

• The Commission will evaluate the Audiovisual Media Services Directive and on payments, has proposed revising the Payment Services Directive extending fraud‑prevention duties for payment service providers and refund rights for victims of payment fraud.  

Financial institutions and payment providers may have to consider enhanced liability and operational controls for fraud detection, stronger customer authentication measures and clearer refund obligations in fraud scenarios.

• Cookie rules will be reformed to reduce the number of times cookie banners pop up and allow users to indicate their consent with one-click and save their cookie preferences while maintaining existing levels of data protection through the Digital Omnibus proposal. 

This points to the potential for a standardised, user‑friendly cookie consent architecture, and fewer banner interactions—reducing compliance costs without lowering data protection standards.

• The Commission will look to explore how digital labelling and digital tools such as mobile applications and the Digital Product Passport can improve access to product and service information for consumers, while reducing administrative burdens and ensuring that all the essential information remains available in a physical form.
• The Commission will also look to ensure consistent implementation and enforcement of the Artificial Intelligence Act and relevant consumer protection and product safety laws. Annual reviews of the AI Act’s list of prohibited practices could tighten constraints on manipulative or deceptive AI.

Sustainable consumption

To promote sustainable consumption, the Commission will explore a recommendation to foster “green by design” features in e‑commerce-sustainability filters, greener delivery options, and sustainable return-management policies which may include voluntary environmental charters under which companies commit to specific sustainability targets.

Member States will be supported in the implementation of recent legislation such as the Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation; the Right to Repair Directive and the Directive on empowering consumers for the green transition.

The Commission is also considering banning PFAS (synthetic chemicals, widely used for their water- and stain-resistant properties) in cosmetics, food‑contact materials and outdoor clothing, phasing out hazardous substances in packaging, and laying down harmonised rules for sorting packaging waste and providing information via digital technologies.

The Car Labelling Directive will be reviewed with a view to supporting consumers to make sustainable choices and increasing the deployment of zero-emission vehicles, complemented by a new small affordable cars initiative, developed in cooperation with industry.

Completing the Single Market: An Action Plan for Consumers

The Commission considers that barriers persist in access to goods and services, particularly financial services, mobility and transport and proposes an action plan to address these to include:

• completing an evaluation of the Geo‑Blocking Regulation by Q2 2026 and possibly extending its scope. Geo‑blocking refers to the practice of using technology to restrict access to online cross-border sales based upon the user’s geographical location;
• developing tools to act against unjustified territorial supply constraints in situation that fall outside the scope of competition law while continuing to enforce competition rules (Q4 2026);
• fostering cross‑border financial services (2026 – 2027);
• concluding agreements extending the EU roaming area to Ukraine, Moldova (January 2026) and Western Balkans and reviewing the EU electronic communications rules on end-user rights and universal service; and
• addressing barriers to multimodal travel by launching initiatives for single digital booking and ticketing, multimodal digital mobility services and a revision of EU passenger rights legislation including a targeted revision of rail passenger rights (legislative proposals Q1 2026).

Effective Enforcement and Redress

To strengthen enforcement mechanisms, the Commission will:

• propose a revision of the Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation as a priority to include assessing the need for centralised investigation and enforcement powers at EU level in certain cases and ways of strengthening coordination among national authorities and continuing to support coordinated enforcement actions and activities of the CPC Network (Q4 2026);
• continue to work with the Consumer Safety Network to pool resources, exchange intelligence and prioritise surveillance actions to effectively target the most harmful products;
• work to improve the interoperability of existing product data for market surveillance and support consumer and market surveillance authorities in the strategic use of AI tools in their enforcement work, including by seeking synergies between tools developed at national level and tools developed at EU level and by training enforcement staff; and
• strengthen implementation of the Representative Actions Directive by further supporting consumer organisations, members of the judiciary and national authorities through EU-funded action grants, seminars and an interactive knowledge hub.  The Commission will closely monitor implementation of provisions regulating third party funding – currently prohibited in Ireland – and assess the need for an EU Ombudsman for cross-border representative actions, followed by a formal evaluation of the functioning of the Directive.

What should businesses do?

The Agenda proposes to further strengthen consumer protection and tackle current and emerging issues.  We will continue to monitor activity in this space as the Agenda is implemented in the coming years and its implications for businesses become clear.