There has been a lot of talk about Brexit in recent weeks and there will be much more in the days ahead. Far be it from Pricewatch to interfere in the voting decisions of people living in another jurisdiction – or even people in this one – but it might be a good idea all the same to outline just some of the ways membership of the European Union has made life better and cheaper for consumers here and there.
And we are not talking about big achievements such as peace in our time, human rights or enhanced worker rights, just some of the comparatively minor – but still significant – enhancements we sometimes take for granted.
1 At the end of April we were given a very real glimpse of the financial benefits of EU membership when the cost of mobile phone roaming fell, as an interim charging cap came into effect ahead of a full ban next year. The cap means operators will not be able to charge us more than five cent a minute for voice calls, two cent for text messages and five cent per megabyte of data.
To put these numbers into perspective, a decade ago a four-minute mobile phone call to Ireland from Italy would have cost you about €5, and it would have cost almost €10 if you were calling from Malta. If you answered your phone in Rome and spoke to someone in Ireland for a few minutes, it would have cost up to €4; in Malta it would have set you back €8.
2 Irish mortgage holders who do not have a tracker might want to look away now. About 500,000 Irish homeowners have tracker mortgages tied to the European Central Bank's rates. They are at historically low levels and likely to stay that way for the foreseeable future. The cash value of a tracker is staggering. Someone on a 1.75 per cent tracker of €250,000 over 25 years pays just shy of €59,000 in interest. Someone with a standard variable rate mortgage of 4.25 per cent pays €156,000. The discrepancy is patently absurd. The EU is not to blame – or to be thanked – for savings of close to €100,000 (based on current rates) tracker holders can make, but were it not for the ECB they would not be possible.
3 The internet has opened all Irish consumers up to a much greater range of products, many of which have heavy discounts compared with the prices that used to be charged closer to home. But buying online comes with risks. Will the product arrive? Will it be as described? What if it is broken? What will I do if things go wrong? The EU has answered most of the questions with a safety net, and anyone who shops anywhere in the EU, either in a bricks-and-mortar shop or a virtual one, can do so secure in the knowledge that they have the same rights as they would have if they had shopped at home.
4 Many of our new rights were enshrined in 2014's Consumer Rights Directive. At a stroke it gave us the ability to put dodgy retailers who had been employing all sorts of dirty tricks for years in their place. It gave all EU consumers longer to change their minds after buying products online, and forced retailers to refund money more quickly. Hidden charges also had their day, and those pre-ticked boxes that saw people inadvertently sign up to all kinds of useless or overpriced things were outlawed.
5 European legislation also gives air passengers who find themselves stranded or otherwise hung out to dry huge levels of protection – financial and otherwise. Under EU Regulation 261, airlines must offer passengers affected by cancellations a full refund or a rerouting on the next available flight or at a later time that suits the passenger. If a passenger opts for a refund, the airline's responsibility ends there. If they ask to be put on the next available flight, the airline must provide care and assistance until the affected passenger can be flown out.
6 If stranded passengers are overseas and trying to get home, airlines must also provide them with meals and refreshments. If necessary the airlines have to cover the cost of hotel accommodation and transport between the hotel and the airport, and the passenger have to be offered two free telephone calls and access to email. All of this is thanks to the EU.
7 Passengers on boats carrying more than 12 people also enjoy more rights. Rules on compensation for delays and cancellations, as well as assistance for disabled passengers, cover all long-distance scheduled services (250km or more), whether national or cross-border.
8 There was much talk of retailers ripping us off when we joined the euro – we were even issued with calculators to allow us to keep tabs on dodgy dealers. But it turns out that the single currency made things cheaper, at least when we travel to other euro-zone countries. Not only do we no longer have to give banks ridiculous sums of money to convert our punts into pesetas, the single currency also means we have a much greater understanding of how much things actually cost in the euro zone, so we don't have to engage in – frequently flawed – mental arithmetic in restaurants or whatever branch of Zara we find ourselves in on the Continent to get a handle of how much we are being asked to pay.
The Republic has the highest duty on wine in the EU at €3.48 a bottle and, when it is added to other taxes, more than half of the cost of a €9 bottle of wine goes to the taxman. Another €3.20 or so is spent on distribution and packaging, after which the retailers needs to have their share, which leaves only 50 cent or so to cover the cost of the actual wine. By any measure this is not good for consumers.
At least we have options, thanks to the EU and its single market. You can go to France and buy as much wine as you want (as long as it’s for personal use) and not have to pay duty. You just load it in to your car, drive on to the ferry and wait until you get home. The fact that you are doing all the hard work means you do not have to pay any of the distribution costs. A bottle of decent wine will cost you no more than a fiver in France. So if you take a ferry to France and spend about €800 on wine, it will take you less than 48 hours and save you €2,000 on the cost. Of course, you will have to drink the wine, so we would urge you to take a bit of care on that score.
9 If you ever need to go to hospital while you are outside of this country, you might find yourself very grateful to be in the EU, as long as you have the European Health Insurance Card. It is one of the most tangible benefits to have come out of the EU for consumers. It gives all European citizens access to public-health services anywhere in the EU and Switzerland. And let's face it, most countries in the EU have a better public-health system than we do. The card needs to be renewed every five years (you can apply at ehic.ie). Never pay for the card: some sites will try to charge for the service, but it is free through the official site.
10 The days of banks charging ridiculous fees for transferring money from one European account to another are beginning to fade to memory thanks to the Single European Payments Area (Sepa). The first and probably most noticeable change, which was rolled out almost two years ago, saw eight-digit bank account numbers and six-digit sort codes replaced by Bics and Ibans.
The changes made electronic transfers across all Sepa states cheaper and faster and gave consumers greater control over their finances than ever before.
The cost of sending and receiving money from overseas has fallen, and banks are not able to charge more to transfer money within the Sepa area than they do for a domestic transfer. Nor can they deduct a fee for collecting a money transfer on the grounds that it is a foreign payment.
People studying overseas or those working in the 33-country area no longer have to set up an in-country bank account and will be able to pay their bills from, or have their wages lodged to, their Irish bank account. They can also set limits on direct debits, and if a provider increases a charge beyond that limit, or tries to double charge, it automatically gets stopped. And they can revoke a transaction for up to eight weeks after a direct debit has left their account. So let’s say you decided against paying a direct debit that left your account in March, you could probably still get it back.
Oh yes, and the EU has also passed laws to make our beaches and rivers cleaner and our roads safer. Its legislation has seen the cost of air travel plummet, growth hormones and other harmful additives banned from our food, and countries forced to remove bans on homosexuality. Equal-pay legislation has been pushed at the highest level in the EU, and employees have the right not to work more than a 48- hour week.
