Consumer or client? : changing the method of determining entities that require protection in the context of selected regulated markets

Bibliogr. s. 74

The aim of the paper is to verify whether in EU law the consumer protection is gradually being replaced by customer protection mechanisms. The scope of the research includes market areas in which disproportion between the parties is the most significant - selected markets of regulated services. Analysis of EU acts determining functioning of tourism, financial and telecommunication services markets serves to explain the EU tendency to expand group of protected entities. It has been claimed in the doctrine that the EU legislator is shifting from the consumer protection model to stronger - weaker party approach. Are those tendencies still visible in the EU law? Results of the study indicate the sustainability of the trend. Should this ongoing phenomenon be seen as an evolutionary change of the obsolete model or a creation of a new protective regime, parallel and simultaneously developing? What is the relation between the two protection regimes?