EU Consumer Commissioner Meglena Kuneva officially launched the new Consumers Masters program. This program will be financially supported by the EU and will start in 13 cities in Germany, France, Spain, Belgium, Denmark, Holland, Poland, Romania, and Great Britain. The goal of the program is to provide professional education in the consumer field, so professionals will enter the job market who will be able to advise associations, institutes for governmental politics planning, and the consumer organizations themselves.

Right now, no such European program exists. The education schedule includes classes such as law for the protection of consumers, behavioral and psychological analysis of consumers, economics, marketing, and technology targeted towards customers’ needs. Associations, governments, and customer oriented organizations have showed interest in hiring some of the firstly graduated professionals.

This new initiative aims to cover consumers’ and employers’ needs by creating an education program, which will combine traditional classes like law, economics, and marketing but also classes of higher European Union level. The program will start during Fall of 2009 and the ones interested can apply directly to the universities.

Each one of the 13 universities will receive financing accounted for 50 000 Euros annually for three years for the preparation and implementation of the classes. The EU will give out 260 scholarships, 3000 Euros each.

For more information you can visit this website:

http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/empowerment/cons_education_en.htm