The EESC’s EU Consumer Day 2025 highlighted the urgent need to protect EU markets from a tsunami of cheap imports shipped by third-country e-commerce platforms such as Temu and Shein. Speakers warned that these imports threatened to wipe out compliant European businesses, drain public budgets and undermine product safety, labour standards and environmental rules.

As many as 12 million parcels valued at under EUR 150 are being shipped every day by third country e-commerce platforms to European consumers. These numbers continue to snowball, with customs and market-surveillance authorities increasingly unable to cope.

In 2024 alone, 4.6 billion such parcels entered the EU - a figure expected to reach six billion in 2025, with over 90% originating from China. This was highlighted at the EESC’s EU Consumer Day 2025, held on 1 December under the title Europe for sale? How global marketplaces are changing our society – and what must be done right now.

The annual event brought together EU institutions, national authorities and civil society organisations, who jointly called for immediate short-term and medium-term measures to halt illegal imports and restore fair competition, stressing this was a shared European challenge.

Opening the event, EESC President Séamus Boland warned: 'This year we have witnessed an exponential increase in low-price goods shipped from outside the EU. We call for urgent action, including EU customs reform and stronger enforcement of existing rules'.

European Commissioner Michael McGrath underlined the Commission’s determination to act: 'We do have a robust legal framework that requires full compliance, and we have a clear vision of forthcoming measures that aim to strengthen both existing protections but also future enforcement'. He announced major initiatives for 2026, including a revamped Consumer Protection Cooperation Regulation and a new Digital Fairness Act.

MEP Anna Cavazzini said the European Parliament wanted to see stronger action from the Commission, echoing its latest resolution calling for an EU-wide market ban on products that systematically and seriously breach EU law.

Consumer organisations presented alarming evidence of product-safety failures, with up to 96% of tested products from major platforms found to be non-compliant or unsafe. Beyond safety risks, evidence from Member States shows the wider economic damage caused by third-country platforms.

The keynote speaker Simo Hiilamo, Finnish Commerce Federation, presented the study entitled The impacts of non-EU distance selling on businesses and society, which revealed staggering losses for Finland's economy.  The country could have generated three times more tax revenue if just 30% of online purchases had taken place domestically.

Lost tax revenue undermines healthcare, education and public infrastructure, directly weakening the European social model.

Concluding the event, EESC member Emilie Prouzet stated: 'Europe is not for sale. We have the facts, the toolbox and the mobilisation. Now we need resolve'. (ll)