The Influence of the European Union Consumer Protection Policy on Croatian Consumers

The European Union Consumer Protection Policy (EU CPP) focuses on the awareness and active participation of consumers in the internal market and therefore counts on consumers’ knowledge of their own conferred rights. Since it is not yet clear what Croatian consumers’ attitudes towards the EU Consumer Protection Policy are, this paper attempts to analyze the impact of the EU Consumer Protection Policy on Croatian consumers’ interest, knowledge, their source of information and their perceived security as consumers. Quantitative (survey) data collection among consumers within the entire Croatia has been used for the analysis. The collected data has been analyzed by using descriptive statistics, correlation and regression analysis, and the analysis of variance (ANOVA). The paper eventually finds significant correlations between Croatian consumers’ degrees of interest, actual knowledge, preferred information sources and perceived security. It furthermore shows that the attitude of Croatian consumers towards the European Union’s system of consumer protection currently shows a significant lack of interest and knowledge. The paper concludes with a premise which states that the attempts to increase interest and knowledge among Croatian consumers require the use of information provided via visible Internet sources.