Issued on: 19.06.2026
Press Release 67/2026
Consumer Protection Ministers' Conference in Potsdam: More Consumer Rights in Dealing with Artificial Intelligence and Three Saarland Initiatives Successful
The Consumer Protection Ministers' Conference (VSMK) in Potsdam was entirely focused on digital consumer protection and the impacts of artificial intelligence (AI) on our daily lives. The federal states unanimously advocated for greater transparency in the handling of artificial intelligence. Additionally, the three Saarland initiatives on the topics of digital purchases, transparency at electric charging stations, and the availability of loans for older people were also addressed.
Whether on smartphones via apps, in cars, or even when concluding contracts on the internet. Artificial intelligence has established itself in many areas of everyday life and can assist us in finding, evaluating information, and making decisions – but AI can now technically even make purchase decisions independently, for example. With far-reaching consequences.
“Consumers must retain control over their decisions, especially when it comes to contracts and purchases,” says Consumer Protection Minister Petra Berg. “We want consumers to be able to set the framework within which AI assistance systems operate and to be able to rely on it. And we want people not to be patronized by AI. For this, we want to advocate at the EU level.”
The purchase of digital goods was also a topic introduced at the initiative of Saarland and is currently being discussed in the EU: In the past, people bought goods they could physically touch: VHS tapes, CDs, video games. This is often no longer the case today. Video games, in particular, are obtained as downloads, with the game itself running on servers that store digital worlds and make them accessible to all players. But suddenly, this video game is no longer accessible because, for example, the server was shut down; the game the consumer purchased is no longer playable, the goods that were bought can no longer be used – just like that.
Minister Berg: „Here we see an imbalance between the economy on one side, which can simply shut down, and the consumers on the other side, who have the right to keep and use their purchases – whether digital or analog. We also want to have other areas of digital goods examined to see if we have enough protection so that purchased products remain available and usable within a reasonable scope.“
Very important for the Saarland, with its high rate of homeownership, was also the Saarland proposal for non-discriminatory lending for older people, which was unanimously adopted. When older people want to take out a loan, for example to renovate or energetically upgrade their house, they often receive a loan with clearly worse conditions compared to younger people.
„We want a loan model that is based on the usual credit conditions – and not discriminatory based on people's age. Especially against the background of the need for good housing, we should not neglect existing properties. We want to support older people in keeping their property habitable but also particularly to protect them from alternatives, such as partial property sales, which create more problems than they solve,“ says the minister.
The third Saarland proposal deals with increased transparency at e-charging stations. Berg: "We want refueling an electric car to be as easy as refueling a combustion engine car. This means I need to be able to clearly and easily see what charging the electricity will cost me – not just the electricity itself, but also any additional fees such as blocking or starting surcharges. No one wants to have to compare four different apps and carry five cards just to potentially not pay the best price at the charging station."
The VSMK also demands that the planned mobility platform of the federal government, the Mobilithek, be implemented as a price transparency platform for ad-hoc charging prices as quickly as possible.
