European Commission's website for energy consumers' rights:
ec.europa.eu/energy/energy_policy/consumers/index_en.htm

European Commission's campaign website for energy consumers' rights and opening of the energy markets: www.agathepower.eu

In 2007, the European Commission declared its intention to reinforce the rights of energy consumers in the European Union by establishing a European Charter on the Rights of Energy Consumers.

The Energy Consumers' Charter aims to clearly set out basic consumer rights with regard to electricity and gas supply, contracts, information, prices, dispute settlement and protection against unfair commercial practices.

The publication of the Commission's ideas on a future Charter is to be followed by a public consultation among stakeholders. The aim is to ensure that, by the end of the 2007, major stakeholders - from consumer organisations to industry - could sign up to the core consumer principles set out in the Charter.

On 28 October 2008, EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva and the Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs opened, in London, the first ever meeting of a new Citizens' Energy Forum, a platform designed to implement and enforce consumer rights on the energy market across the EU. The aim of the forum is to tackle consumer problems and propose practical solutions so that current EU-wide consumer rights exist in practice and not only on paper and improve regulatory conditions in the retail markets. The Forum brings together national consumer organisations, industry, national regulators, and government authorities to work on key issues such as switching energy suppliers, user-friendly billing, smart metering or protecting vulnerable groups.

The Citizens' Energy Forum has been launched to help consumers by working to enforce their existing EU-wide rights and to provide them with clear, straightforward information on what choices are available to them when it comes to buying their gas and electricity. The idea of the Forum was proposed in the Commission's 3rd package for the internal energy market and was presented by Commissioners Kuneva and Piebalgs at the May 2008 conference on Energy Consumers' Rights. The forum will develop recommendations aimed at better implementation and enforcement of the rights of energy consumers, and better electricity and gas retail markets.

In parallel, the EU will continue to watch energy markets, and comprehensive market monitoring consumer data - gathered by the European Commission - indicating how gas and electricity markets are delivering for consumers, will feed into the work of the Forum. This data will be published annually as part of a broader market monitoring analysis The Consumer Markets Scoreboard. Member States will also report to the Forum on their monitoring of household prices, switching rates or complaints, a new power given to them under the Third Energy Package.