(3) The European Parliament has welcomed the Scoreboard and the use of complaints as a key indicator and called on the Commission and the Member States to work towards harmonising their complaint classification systems and establishing an EU-wide database of consumer complaints [5]. Widespread consultation of citizens throughout Europe [6] led to calls for a speedier response to citizens' complaints.

(4) In 2008, the Commission carried out a public consultation seeking stakeholders' views on developing a harmonised methodology for classifying and reporting consumer complaints across the European Union. A wide range of 114 stakeholders responded. Overall, the majority of respondents supported the development of a harmonised methodology under a voluntary system.

(5) This Communication sets out the merits of using consumer complaints as a key indicator of internal market functioning. It shows the limitations of the complaints data currently available and the huge potential benefits of harmonising complaints data. To this end, the Commission believes that all third-party organisations collecting consumer complaints in the EU should voluntarily adopt a harmonised methodology to classify and report the resulting data. This Communication is accompanied by a Staff working document introducing a draft harmonised methodology. In order to maximise the acceptance of a voluntary methodology, the harmonised methodology is published in draft form for public consultation. The Commission will use the feedback from the consultation to improve the draft harmonised methodology. The deadline for comments is 05/10/2009.

1 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the regions, "A single market for 21st century Europe".{COM(2007) 725 final}
2 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the regions, "Monitoring consumer outcomes in the single market: the Consumer Markets Scoreboard".{SEC(2008) 87}
3 Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee, "EU Consumer Policy strategy 2007-2013". {SEC(2007) 321}{SEC(2007) 322}{SEC(2007) 323}
4 Regulation (EC) No 2006/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 October 2004 on cooperation between national authorities responsible for the enforcement of consumer protection laws
5 European Parliament Resolution on the consumer markets scoreboard, EP reference number: A6-0392/2008 / P6_TA-PROV(2008)0540
6 The European Citizens’ Consultations 2009 were run by a unique consortium of more than 40 independent European partner organisations.