Flash Eurobarometer 321 (European Contract Law in Consumer Transactions)

Business attitudes towards cross‐border business‐to-consumer transactions and the usefulness of a European contract law.<br>Topics: self-rated knowledge about consumer protection provisions in contract laws of other EU countries; impact of each of the following obstacles on the company’s decision to sell cross border to consumers from other EU countries: language, need to adapt and comply with different consumer protection rules in foreign contract laws, finding information about foreign contract laws, cultural differences, tax regulations, formal requirements, resolving cross-border conflicts, obtaining legal advice on foreign contract laws, delivery problems, after-sales maintenance abroad; frequency of missed transactions due to the aforementioned obstacles; frequency of refusal to sell to foreign consumers due to differences in consumer protection rules; attitude towards a single European contract law; estimated increase of cross-border transactions due to a single European contract law; number of additional EU countries to sell to in case of the existence of a single European contract law; preferred kind of European contract law: law replacing the national contract laws, alternative law for cross-border transactions, alternative law for domestic and for cross-border transactions.

Demography: information about the company: number of employees, company size; direct selling to final consumers; type of business‐to‐consumer transactions; cross-border selling to consumers; total turnover in 2009; kind of sold products and services; sales channels; number of EU countries cross-border transactions are made with.

Additionally coded was: interviewer ID; language of the interview; respondent ID; country; date of interview; time of the beginning of the interview; duration of the interview; type of phone line; call history; weighting factor.