‘Consumer empowerment' is a central goal of European consumer law. The empowerment of consumers, e.g. through information disclosure or through education, is used as a means to tackle asymmetries of bargaining power between consumers and businesses. One area in which this policy is prominent...

Divergence in European consumer law is increased by the different approaches to ‘average consumers' found in national laws and in EU law. The ‘average consumer' concept of EU law relies on the ability of consumers to make rational decisions. In accordance with this prototype of a...

In this article we argue that a rights oriented approach alone cannot achieve effective consumer empowerment. A critical point that is often overlooked in the Commission’s striving to create and to fine-tune consumer rights, is that these rights do not necessarily coincide with consumer needs....