The importance of services in the EU economy has increased exponentially in the last decades as have the number and scope of EU rules, both those liberalising the provision of services and those protecting their recipients or consumers - the passengers, patients, viewers and bank depositors. However, these consumers, in their capacity as citizens, are increasingly disillusioned with the EU and its institutions.
This book, written by practitioners, academics and advocates before the European Court, reflects on these developments, examining rules in numerous service sectors, from the capping of roaming call charges upheld in the Vodafone decision, through health care, to the requirement for air carriers to care for and compensate passengers approved in the generous Sturgeon judgment. The Court's positive approach may have been guided by a desire to consolidate the notion of EU citizenship, a status introduced, but without clear content, at Maastricht. The book therefore considers whether these uniform, EU-wide, consumer rights may not form an important component of such European citizenship. The Commission's proposal to make 2013 European Year of Citizens seems to favour such a view.

Frank Benyon joined the European Commission's Legal Service in 1980 and has been a Director there from 2000 to 2010 in charge of the Business Law Team dealing with Establishment, Capital and Services freedoms, in particular in the banking, telecommunications and transport sectors. After university he qualified as a solicitor and practised with Allen and Overy before becoming a partner with Clifford Turner, working successively in their Brussels, Dubai and Paris offices. He is now a Senior Fellow in the Law Department of the European University Institute in Florence.