THE PROJECT The Consumer Law Enforcement Forum (CLEF) project received funding under the European Commission’s 2005 call for specific projects in the field of consumer affairs.

The project started on 1 October 2006 and will run for three years.

What is the project about? This project is concerned with the role consumer organisations can play in making the consumer protection rules developed by the EU fully and equally effective throughout the Community, in particular in the new Member States.

Making sure consumer organisations are aware of the enforcement possibilities that are available is the central task of this project, allowing consumer organisations to learn from the experiences of others. The project deals with the involvement and the possible roles of consumer organisations in both public enforcement i.e. getting public authorities to more fully engage with consumer problems and in private enforcement i.e. bringing case to courts via collective action (litigation).

Structure of the project The first pillar of the project is the establishment of a Consumer Law Enforcement Forum (CLEF) with the objective of discussing enforcement means, activities and problems in the various Member States and in different areas of consumer law.

The results of the Forum meetings are summarised and transferred into consumer law enforcement guidelines to assist in the enforcement of consumer law and to disseminate information to consumer organisations and consumers.

The second pillar of the project is to help consumer organisations in the new Member States and accessing countries to develop strategies on enforcement activities and to empower them to improve enforcement in their country through “knowledge transfer courses” focusing in particular on their specific needs and on the practical aspects of enforcement activities.

Organisation BEUC, the European Consumer Organisation, is the secretariat for CLEF. It is responsible for all organisational and management tasks of the project.

The project partners are sixteen consumer organisations from different Member States, eight of them from the new Member States or accessing countries. This very broad geographical coverage ensures that all different European enforcement cultures are represented and discussed within the Forum.

The Forum is supported by two experts on European consumer law, Professor Howells and Professor Micklitz, who ensure that the practical expertise and knowledge provided by the project partners are combined with legal scholarship and are responsible for drafting the consumer law enforcement guidelines.