The @EU_Commission has presented its proposal for a Right to Repair (#RightToRepair) (👉 commission.europa.eu/law/law-topic/…). Good to finally have a proposal, but it's underambitious for achieving its goal. Let's have a closer look: a🧵
1a/ Core to the proposal is the obligation to repair in Article 5. Good: irrespective of the location of the producer, a good must be repaired by somebody if requested by the consumer. Bad: Possibility to refuse the request by reference to the blurry concept of 'impossibility'.
1b/ Obligation to repair is limited to products mentioned in Annex II, which can be extended by the European Commission by means of a delegated act (hello, my old friend!). Proper dynamisation of the scope of the obligation to repair is crucial.
2/ There is the European Repair Information Form (Art. 4) to be issued by a repairer before a consumer enters into a contract for repair services. Nice to have. But more relevant: Information by the producer on the repairability! Plus: The consumer has to pay for the form? C'mon.
3/ On #repairability: there is only a generic obligation for Member States to come up with some ideas how producers should inform consumers about the obligation to repair (but not the actual repairability of a product).
4/ The R2R directive wants to create national online platforms for repair and refurbishment services.
5/ Important: the remedies provision in Art. 13 of the Sale of Goods Directive (2019/771) will be modified (Art. 12): repair becomes the compulsory remedy 'where the costs for replacement are equal to or greater than the cost of repair'. What is the appropriate cost of repair?
6/ Good for legal protection: the right to repair directive will be added to the Representative Actions Directive (2020/1828) so that consumer organisations can enfore the obligation to repair.
7/ Finally, the directive shall be of maximum harmonisation. What does this mean for all measures incentivising repair in Member States such as the Austrian repair vouchers? Big gap in the proposal: costs are determined by producers and consumers have to take it or leave it.
8/ What's missing? Nothing about an extended minimum guarantee period for repaired products (or products in general); nothing about repair and software updates (and the issue of downgrading products by software updates); nothing about financial support for the cost of repair.
9/ Conclusions: good to have a proposal for an important issue! But there is a need to improve the text in terms of information on repairability, limiting the refusal of repair requests, incentivising repair, supporting consumers in bearing the costs, the guarantee period. /END
Background reading I: The European Parliament's resolution on the right to repair from 7 April 2022: europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document…
Background reading II: Press statement by the S&D group (@TheProgressives) by our spokesperson on the internal market and consumer protection @SchaldemoseMEP and vice-president of the group @BiljanaBorzan
Background reading III: My own press statement (in German)
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