Guidelines of WhizzBang Meuse-Rhine

When was WhizzBang e.V. founded?

EuroConsum e.V. was founded on August 19, 2019; operations in the field of consumer protection startet in December 2019.

What are your sources of its funding in general?

Sources of funding are:

• membership fees
• donations by non-profit organizations

Do you received donations from traders or enterprises?

Yes, from EuroConsum gGmbH, which is a non-profit company itself.

How is it that you have a legitimate interest in protecting consumer interests?

Not only does our work suggests, that we intensify our protection for expat consumers, but our statute demands for it, too.

Are you a non-profit-making organization?

Yes we are. Please see section 2 of our statute for details.

Are you subject of insolvency proceedings or have you been declared insolvent?

Neither. Insolvency proceedings would usually be published via the German Insolvenzregister.

How are you independent and not influenced by persons (other than consumers), in particular by traders, who have an economic interest in the bringing of any representative action, including in the event of funding by third parties?

We are independent of these groups. You can learn more about how this is from our common code-of-conduct.

To that end of independence and non-influence, have you established procedures to prevent such influence and how do you prevent conflicts of interest between yourself, your funding providers and the interests of consumers?

Yes, we have established (and routinely revise) such procedures. For details please see our code-of-conduct.

What’s your organisational structure?

As laid out in our statute we have a board and a general assembly. We also have a general management, which is not an official organ of the association. In the WhizzBang network, we also have a common legal service (Service Juridique) for which all members share the costs.

What’s your membership structure

Our members are Watchdog organizations, Consumer Protection Agencies, 29 Individuals (December 2024).

What’s your statutory purpose?

Here’s from our statute:

**2.1 Purpose
**(1) Promotion of consumer counseling and consumer protection;
(2) The association pursues exclusively charitable purposes in accordance with German law, namely the purpose of promoting consumer advice and consumer protection (main purpose), as well as fundraising for charitable purposes (secondary purpose).
(3) As part of the fulfilment of its purpose, it represents the interests of consumers by providing information and advice on a non-commercial and not merely temporary basis, in particular
by
a. the provision of information (usually in digital form),
b. counselling consumers on their rights.
(4) Its activities are not regionally restricted.
(5) The organisation’s purpose is achieved with particular regard to the realities of European integration, its current effects on consumers and the challenges facing further European integration.
(6) This work shall include, in particular, the protection of consumers’ interests with regard to their health, protection against exploitation, both in economic terms and with regard to the exploitation of their attention (“attention economy”), against discrimination and the protection of their personal data, their freedom of choice (including the right to an informed decision).
(7) This includes, in particular, the concerns and interests of persons who reside, live, work or pursue an education in a country other than the country of their birth or the country of their nationality (“expats”).
(8) In particular, the goal is also to secure, expand and intensify the participation of all in the benefits of European integration and to mitigate the disadvantages of transformation processes in order to complete the common area of freedom, security and justice, because it is our conviction that the fate of our Union will be decided by the fate of the most marginalised people.
(9) It is also an objective to improve access to harmonised law in the Member States (including the future candidate countries).

What are your activities?

Great you ask, because you came to the right place: find out about our counseling, our media or community work and how we lobby on your behalf as an expat.