Even if, like his namesake Neven Matea a few weeks ago before the Budget Control Committee, the Vice President of the Croatian Government Neven Mimica does not receive the support of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection of the European Parliament, he will be remembered as the first Croatian official to use the Croatian language as an official language in any institution of the European Union.
Mimica’s hearing for the position of European Commissioner for Consumer Protection is so far a classic game of cat and mouse in which Parliament representatives try to extract concrete answers and promises from the potential commissioner or simply provoke him, while Mimica responds quite generally and academically. In a sea of technical disputes regarding consumer rights and ongoing issues in that area, only the question from Cornelis de Jong of the United European Left and the conversation of the potential commissioner with representative Andrej Plenković in Croatian stand out. When asked about the rights of European travelers mentioned as an example, Mimica humorously replied that he is personally interested in strengthening them because he still has not received his luggage from Brussels airport. Croatian member of the European People’s Party Plenković asked him what he thinks about strengthening consumer awareness in relation to his classic protection and how he would define the concept of vulnerable consumer (uneducated, of lower economic status, disabled, etc.).
