The Assistant Minister for Trade, services, prices and consumer protection Ljiljana Stanković opened in Belgrade the seminar on “Protection of the collective interests of consumers” organized by the Ministry of Foreign and Internal Trade and Telecommunications in collaboration with the IPA project “Strengthening Consumer Protection in Serbia” which is funded by the EU.
The aim of the seminar, held on October 24th and 25th, 2013, is to make the representatives of the state institutions that are relevant to consumer protection and non-governmental organizations for consumer protection more familiar with the administrative and law practices on the protection of the collective interests of consumers in the EU and Serbia.
Thierry Bourgoignie, Team Leader and key legal expert on the IPA Project stressed the importance of having a mechanism to protect the collective interests of consumers which is regulated by a special chapter of the Draft of the consumer protection law which is under public debate until October 27, 2013.
On the first day of the seminar, a legal expert involved in the IPA project of the Ministry of Economy, Energy and Tourism of the Republic of Bulgaria, Emil Alexiev and the Director of Public Relations at the Association for Consumer Protection “Altroconsumo” from Italy, Marco Pierani shared the EU experience in this segment of consumer protection. Mr. Branko Babović, a teaching assistant at the Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade, and Vojin Biljić, a lawyer presented examples of the protection of the collective interests of consumers in Serbia.
The presentation of the role of public administration in this segment as well as the procedure for the protection of the collective interests of consumers which is regulated by the Draft of the consumer protection law are scheduled to be presented tomorrow by the experts involved in the IPA project Dr. Tatjana Jovanić and Mr. Mateja Đurović.
