We have the pleasure to honoring APC’s excellence in Consumer Protection and Education on the occasion of its 30^th Anniversary to be celebrated in Bucharest on February 10, 2020, at the InterContinental Hotel in Bucharest, Romania (https://www.crd-aida.ro/2020/01/asociatia-pro-consumatori-30-de-ani-de-implicare-cu-profesionalism-responsabilitate-si-devotament/ ).

APC will be awarded a Diploma of Special Merit as a prestigious recognition for its professionalism, responsibility and devotion on serving consumers, inspiring and promoting a culture of learning, observation and assessment in order to effectively informing consumers, strengthening consumers’ capacity to turn a problem to their advantage, by solving it if possible before it occurs, considering the free choice an informed choice, and fine-tuning the relationship between consumer rights and business ethics, really stimulating consumer empowerment in today’s Omni channel world.

Recognized (in 2005, by the Romanian Government) as a public utility organization, APC is a member of BEUC (Bureau Européen des Unions de Consommateurs – The European Consumer Organisation), and the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD, a forum of US and EU consumer organisations which develops and agrees on joint consumer policy recommendations to the US government and European Union to promote the consumer interest in EU and US policy making). It is well-known, for instance, that:

● BEUC recently outlined (according to their Press Release posted on December 17, 2019), in mission letters sent to nine members of the new Commission team, the top priorities for action by the new European Commission to advance the interests of Europe’s consumers during its five-year mandate (https://www.beuc.eu/publications/new-european-commission-%E2%80%93-what-consumers-expect-over-next-five-years/html );

● on 12^th December 2019 TACD and Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung Brussels (https://tacd.org/tacd-and-heinrich-boll-stiftung-brussels-publish-research-highlighting-failings-in-privacy-protection-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic/ ) published research which examined how aspects of privacy and data protection are working for consumers in the EU and the US (this research: analysed three major global platforms: Amazon, Netflix and Spotify; was carried out through a mixture of mystery shopping, requests for access to personal data made by volunteers, and an analysis of existing EU and US legislation);

● TACD very recently retweeted a message from Twitter posted by the European Commissioner Didier Reynders on January 16, 2020, with regard to his meeting with BEUC (which represents more than 40 organizations in Europe), on the menu for discussions being EU priorities concerning consumers (https://twitter.com/TACD_Consumers?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Eembeddedtimeline%7Ctwterm%5Eprofile%3ATACD_Consumers&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftacd.org%2Ftacd-and-heinrich-boll-stiftung-brussels-publish-research-highlighting-failings-in-privacy-protection-on-both-sides-of-the-atlantic%2F ).

On the other hand, allow us to underline the fact that our distinguished European and American Great Friends – such as: Léon F. Wegnez, Bernd Hallier, Riccardo Garosci and John L. Stanton – are looking forward to the conclusions of this 30^th Anniversary of APC, Romania.