Introduction

For several years now social inclusion has been at the top of policy agendas for the EU and its Member States. In its Europe 2020 strategy, ¹ the EU established the target of lifting at least 20 million people out of poverty and social exclusion by 2020. This target is inherently connected to the EU goal of social cohesion, ² which is to be achieved by sharing the benefits of growth and jobs. Consumer credit plays a pivotal role for both growth and social inclusion because it enables citizens to foster economic growth by buying goods and services on the internal market and to fulfil their own consumerist desires and achieve the standard of living to which they aspire. In this context, consumer credit has been increasingly expanded into all layers of society by liberalising access to such credit.