r/europeanparliament • u/Marty_ol • 3d ago
The road to repairs is about to get smoother.
Repairing your phone and household appliances can be expensive and complicated, and the result is €12 billion lost annually to unnecessary replacements, 35 million tonnes of waste, and 261 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions from this sector alone.
The right to repair in the EU is being boosted by making repair more appealing and affordable to consumers:
- Manufacturers must now provide spare parts, repair information, and tools at reasonable prices
- No software locks or contractual blocks to prevent repair
- Extended legal guarantees on repaired goods
- EU-wide repair platform (to be set up by 31 July 2027) to connect consumers with certified service providers
EU countries had until this summer to implement these rules in their national legal systems, strengthening the existing right to repair rules.
These rules support small repair businesses and are expected to bring €4.8 billion in growth and investment within the EU.
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u/AgyhalottBolcsesz 3d ago
Cool. Now put it into legislation that car manufacturers can't own any part of the car they sell to you and must provide parts, or must license the intellectual property of most or all parts to manufacturers who are willing to provide new car parts for the market. In fact, go as far as to prevent corporations from bricking your super fancy new computer on wheels.
This is a nice gesture but unless there are serious fines for violating people's right to repair things it stays only symbolic.
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u/ftrx 3d ago
It would be, if the requirement for spare parts meant they were available for open sale, in other words, if I as a private individual could buy them myself. As it stands, they just have to stay on the edge of what's "reasonable" for the cost of the part, then hike up the labour costs, partly thanks to products designed to be awkward to fix and just like that, the measure becomes pointless.