Consumer Summit part 7: Conclusion

Landing in Prague on Thursday evening still wasn't the end of the whole Summit. Earlier I mentioned a live interview, so it's now time to talk about that in full.

On Thursday, Mr. Tichota mentioned to me that me and Mr. Večl were invited to a live broadcast in the Czech Television. We met in the building of the Czech Television on Friday morning, we had out make-up done, and met the moderator - Ms. Lada Kolovratová to shortly go through what we'd be talking about. An assistant put a microphone onto our jackets and then, when the cameras were not facing our chairs, we went to take a seat in the studio. There was no time to be nervous or anything like that; things were happening too fast.

Ms. Kolovratová opened the debate with basic information about the European Consumer Centre, introduced us to the viewers, and then the questions started to flow. Mr. Večl told the viewers what the Centres can do for consumers, how to proceed when a consumer has a problem, I then told the viewers all about my case and how it was solved by the Czech and the Danish Centres. Mr. Večl then gave more information about the processes necessary to solve each such case, he informed the viewers about extra rights that consumers have when shopping online. And because there was still some time left for us, Ms. Kolovratová asked us about the summit, we both answered why we went to the summit and what we found interesting. And then the ten minutes were over; the time appared to run very fast. It all went very well, the moderator told us we did great - and I guess they were right. If you want to judge by yourself, you can see the broadcast in the archive of Czech Television. The interview starts about 17 minutes and 15 second into the video.

It was a very interesting trip - and an opportunity that will probably never occur again. I'm very grateful that I was able to take part in this event. Flying to Brussels and back, having dinner with European Comissioner Ms. Kuneva, meeting most of the people who play a role in consumer protection in Europe, listening to people like Mr. Aho, the former Prime Minister of Finland, Mr. Arora, Senior vice-president of Google, or Dr. Bowe, the chairman of Ofcom, giving an interview to Czech Radio and a live interview in the Czech Television... all of that during sixty hours! I certainly enjoyed it and I learned a lot about how the European Consumer Centres and other institutions work. I would also like to thank to Mr. Večl, Mr. Tichota, and Ms. Skřivánková, who all made me feel very welcome and who helped me with anything I needed during the trip.

I'm also very glad that I was able to help the European Consumer Centre a little with publicity. Hopefully after the coverage in the national media, a lot more people will know about the Centres and about what they can help with. The people who work in the Centres and in associated organisations, both in the Czech Republic and in the other member states, put a lot of effort into helping customers, into making sure that any problems in cross-border trades are solved to the satisfaction of the customer. If you want a living proof that the system that is in place works, here I am!

Thanks for reading the whole story - and now please excuse me, I need to listen to the Dutch and Swedish cast recording of Mamma Mia! the musical, which I bought about a month ago from a reputable Dutch internet shop, and I need to order a few books from a UK internet shop.

See you all in the Digital marketplace!