The Summit started with a registration on Wednesday at 8:30 in the Charlemagne building. While waiting for the registration, I met the two representatives of the European Consumer Centre of the Czech Republic: Mr. Tomáš Večl, the director of the Centre, and Mr. Ondřej Tichota, the PR specialist of the Centre, and also Ms. Tereza Skřivánková from the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade. We went through the registration, through a necessary security check, and continued to the meeting room where the first part of the summit, the Pre-event with consumers, would be held.
The purpose of the Pre-event was to talk about European citizen's views and concerns as consumers operating in the digital world. The discussion focused on three areas: the digital environment and marketplace, consumer advocacy, and the main challenges of the digital environment for consumer policy over the next five years. The pre-event was opened and moderated by Mr. Robert Madelin, Director General of European Commission Directorate General for Health and Consumer Protection (often abbreviated as DG-SANCO).
The pre-event took place in a large conference room and was interpreted into 21 languages and streamed live on the web. You can see the conference room on the following picture. The interpreters (three for each language) sit in the boxes in the back.
The pre-event started with a short presentation about what the participants of the summit identified as the biggest concerns and challenges in the digital marketplace. Most people were concerned about the amount and security of personal data that websites require, often even just to view the information on the site.
The longest part of the pre-event was spent by listening to members of the European Consumer Centres, government organisations, and consumers themselves.
At around 11:30, the Commissioner Ms. Meglena Kuneva arrived and Mr. Madelin presented her with the results of the pre-event.
When the pre-event ended, there was a reception and buffet hosted by Commissioner Kuneva. But me and Messrs. Večl and Tichota were rushing to the ground floor of the building where we were awaited by Ondřej Houska, reporter of the Radiožurnál programme of the Czech Radio. Mr. Večl answered a few questions about what the European Consumer Centre is and what it can do for a consumer and I presented my case to the listeners. You can see Mr. Večl (on the left) and Mr. Houska (on the right) doing the interview on the next few pictures.
The interview was not live (but a live interview was yet to come, unbeknownst to me at that time); the short programme was aired later that day. If you are interested to listen to the broadcast, you can check it in the archive of the Czech Radio. Our interview starts at about 18 minutes and 20 seconds into the recording. The broadcast is in Czech language.
After the interview, we went back to the buffet to have some lunch and then we moved to the Autoworld where the rest of the Summit was taking place. Autoworld is a very interesting place, so it deserves a chapter of its own before we move on with the Summit.
Copyright notice: Text and images copyright by Michal Řeháček.