Club for Protection of Consumer Interests
Advice Giving Office in Riga
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Founded: 1990
History Club for Protection of Consumer Interests is the first and longest-established consumer non-governmental organisation in Latvia. It was founded in 1990 when Latvia was on the verge of new political and economical system. We already had competent specialists who knew how consumer protection is carried out abroad. We wanted to raise the self-awareness and confidence of consumers and make their voice heard and considered. When we at first referred to the government for support, they answered that all consumer problems will be automatically solved by the new-coming market economy. At that time there were not any state institutions in consumer protection area and the Club was the only organisation dealing in this area in Latvia. The market in European countries is highly developed but consumer problems exist anywhere. With some of them we still are not familiar but together with new goods and services new problems arise as well. In 1994 foreign colleagues asked if we had distance selling here. We said - not yet. But now we do. The first thing that we understood was the importance of consumer legislation. The law "On Protection of Consumer Rights" can be considered our first largest achievement. Our working group drafted the law, which was one of the first ones in independent Latvia, and gave it to the Saeima (the Parliament of the Republic Latvia) for adoption. The contribution of our work in this law is about 80 per cent. The Saeima adopted the law on 28 October 1992. Since the adoption of the first Consumer Protection Law in 1992, Latvia has committed to consumer protection policy. This position has been strongly reaffirmed with the adoption of the revised Consumer Rights Protection Law in March 1999. Without this law further development of consumer movement would have not been possible in practice. The Club has also been actively participating in drafting other legal acts regarding consumer interests and proposing the necessary amendments to them. Significant investigation work has been given in work with public opinion, firstly to make people feel like consumers and understand what it means. Great information and education work was carried out through mass media and by giving advice personally. The most successful work is in the area of consumer information and education. The creation of non-governmental consumer advice giving system was initiated by AgV under the PHARE CICPPII programme by opening the first Advice Giving Office in Riga in 1998 in framework of the Club for Protection of Consumers Interests to provide help to consumers by telephone, in person or by e-mail. In March 1999, ten years after our consumer organisation was founded in Riga, consumer clubs and societies from all over Latvia united to form the Latvian National Association for Consumer Protection (PIAA). The founder members are regional consumer clubs from Riga, Jurmala, Rezekne, Latgale Region and Jelgava and two tenants associations from Ogre and Liepaja. The Association is an independent non-government federation, which works nationally to extend and protect consumer rights in Latvia as well as to co-ordinate the work of local and regional groups. Today PIAA consists of 11 independent consumer organisations with a total of about 700 individual members. With our experience we are able to contribute to the development of the independent consumer movement in Latvia - in September 1999 with our assistance a Consumer Protection Club was established in the second largest city of Latvia - Daugavpils. Now it is also a member of PIAA. One step in the direction of professional support for consumer advice activities is consumer self-information system, which has been elaborated by state institution - Consumer Rights Protection Centre - in co-operation with PIAA with technical support of AgV under the PHARE programme. The information files (seven at the moment - "Consumer Rights", "Heating and Hot Water", "Clothing", "Footwear", "Cosmetics", "Tourism", "Fruit and Vegetables") are distributed in all regional advice offices of PIAA. In August 2000 the Club for Protection of Consumer Interests created the first resource site for consumers - "The Consumer Guide" - on Internet. By opening Internet address www.consumer-guide.lv, consumers at any time and place can obtain broad and detailed information about their legal rights, goods and services, as well as get to know the latest consumer news, express their opinion in poll and submit complaints. "The Consumer Guide" is one of the most visited websites run by non-governmental organisations. In 2000 we celebrated our 10th birthday. Our achievement would not be made possible without the support from our partners - Consumers International, VzBv (former AgV), HAI Europe, Nordic Countries consumer organisations, Consumers' Association "Which?" and others.
Our work Club for Protection of Consumer Interests is working as a complaints-handling agency for consumers. Since 1999, the office has helped over three thousand consumers (520 - in 2005), majority of them - about consumer legal rights and legislation (22%), various services (24%) and goods (15%), electrical appliances (15%), footwear (13%). We are representing consumers on consultative bodies and working with the government institutions on drafting and amending consumer legislation, as well as on education and information programmes. Members of the Club are involved in Euro working group "Non-finance business and consumers" (Mrs. Zinta Kovalevska, since 2005), Food Council (Mrs. Ilga Karlsone, since 1998). There is much goodwill and practical co-operation between the government sector and our organisation. Internationally we represent our consumers in Health Action International (since 1994) which is a global network of organisations from more than 70 countries, and ANEC - the European consumer voice in standardisation (Mrs Lilia Stelpe, since 2003). We also take part in the European Network of Consumer Educators. On October 14, 2004, Cabinet of Ministers adopted the Basic Guidelines of Consumer Rights Protection Program in order to define basic principles of consumer policy, goals and main courses of action to ensure high level consumer rights protection. These basic guidelines are developed in accordance with Consumer Policy Strategy 2003-2006 of European Commission. To implement the basic guidelines, Club for Protection of Consumer Interests co-drafted the Consumer Rights Protection Programme for 2005-2007. As regards the most important projects and campaigns, they are as follows:
Existing problems Consumer NGOs do not receive any funding from the government, our work depends on grants for implementing various projects. According to the Consumer Rights Protection Programme for 2005-2007, co-financing of non-governmental sector is foreseen in the future. Unfortunately, there is yet no consumer policy body in Latvia, such as a Consumer Consultative Council, which would allow consumer organisations to represent consumer interests and influence policy on a regular basis and about different consumer policy issues. The weak point in consumer information system is the lack of comparative product testing. State institutions test products only in cases if there are well-founded suspicions about product unconformity to safety requirements. Non-governmental organisations can not do it due to lack of means. Besides the presence of state institutions is required for taking samples in the places of selling. |
© 2000-2006 Club for Protection of Consumers Interests