Informative session: Empowering of SCOs and consumer protection by informing and raising awareness, 23 March 2022, Elbasan

On 23 March 2022 an information session was held at University of Elbasan, within the project ‘From information to action – Strengthening organisations in Albania on consumer protection’, supported financially by the European Union. The informing activity brought together civil society actors, lectures and experts, as well as  students, to discuss on issues that are related with Customer Protection with special focus on customers’ right for information and the role that various actors such as institutions or media have on informing the public. The discussion was  focused on development and the last cases related mostly with food safety and the increasing prices of products in markets. 

In the beginning of the meeting Gledis Gjipali, Executive Director of European Movement in Albania, presented the objectives of the project and the opportunities that it will offer for civil society actors, to be informed, to participated and to be engaged in activities, in the framework of related issues with consumer protection topics, increasing of capacities  regarding the process of negotiations and raising awareness g on consumer rights. Mentoring the process of consulting and drafting policies, related to the field of Consumer Protection and preparation of those actors with the necessary capacities to make the analysis of implementation of politics and institutional performance is another activity that is being implemented through this action. Gjipali said that the information is an obligatory step for engaging those groups of interest, in order to be clear on their rights, about the procedures and institutions related with consumer protection. 

Eda Çela, Head of the Office of Coordination and International Relations at University of Elbasan, during her speech expressed the necessity to achieve those objectives, where topics related to Consumer Protection must  have a bigger attention in academic environments and universities, as well as for civil society and the general public. She underlined that Consumer Protection is a topic that is treated  little or not at all in the curricula of obligated education as  it is in the university curricula, as it is the case of law studies, where the aspects related with this area are little included. She highlighted the readiness  to make other activities like this, that offer information and orientation at University of Elbasan in collaboration with various CSOs. 

During his presentation, Granit Sokolaj, Director of Alert Centre firstly highlighted the right for information as consumers, in fact we all are consumers and we all have the right to be  informed for products, services that we buy and pay, mentioning the most recent discussed and public cases such as electricity and the consequences from bird flu. By giving a major role to the media in informing and raising awareness to  customers, he highlighted that there are some challenges that are encountered for committing this role in a correct and efficient way such as the fact that majority of journalists are not trained and well-informed on how to treat those cases where the customer is affected.  On the other hand, the matters linked with  informing consumers is not the focus of the media  in Albania. An informed and consent consumer, is a consumer that firstly knows their rights and secondly knows how to ask for them in case of violation or abuse. Among other things, Sokolaj mentioned the problems that are faced today by online shopping, as a way that is spreading in Albania, but the consumer is often deceived by these purchases. A major part of operators that offer the service of online commerce, have not the necessary information on their online pages, the necessary contacts and any other relevant information  about the products, where the most part operates only by social networks. This  makes it more difficult to contact those pages in cases of dissatisfaction or  need for change of products. Consumers don’t have where to complain, and even for institutions  it is more difficult  the process of identification and tracing of such operators. 

Another topic with interest is the right to return the product, a topic that many consumers don’t have information on. This right is for every product, as well as in cases where the consumer has any particular reason to return the purchased product, in two weeks the operator is obligated to return the payment back. Regarding the cases where the consumers’ rights are concerned, to Sokolaj in our society it is missing the culture of appeal and the culture of consumers to ask for their rights till the end. 

During the open discussion participants  shared their own experience and discussed about cases of online shopping and the legal procedure that they had followed . Another topic for discussion was  a the role that CSOs should play to increase the public information, considering the information as empowerment, while the necessary initiatives should be taken to build a culture of reaction that seems to be missing in Albania. With  interest to discuss was the question of how the empowerment of CSOs can be concretely translated into organisations and practical and formal engagements and how to institutionalise this engagement. The inclusion of these issues in the teaching and university curricula but also the organization of such extra-curricular activities, was suggested as a  necessity by the participating students.