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EU: Political agreement reached on right to repair initiative
Up nextEU: Political agreement reached on right to repair initiative
5 February 2024
Series
Blogs
5 February 2024
The EU institutions reached a political compromise on the right to repair initiative at the end of last week, thereby setting another milestone for the circular economy. The new Right to Repair Directive (R2RD) will amend the legal warranty rules laid down in the Sale of Goods Directive and introduce new rights and obligations for the time after the legal warranty period has elapsed for certain in-scope products. Further tools to make repair more attractive to consumers include a European repair information form and a European online platform for repair. Even if not all proposals by the Commission, the Parliament and the Council were approved in the trilogue negotiations, the new directive will impose a number of new obligations on sellers, manufacturers and repairers of goods to which they need to adapt their business practices.
The trilogue negotiations were relatively brief in view of the EU institutions’ diverging positions on this file (read more in our blog post), which is probably due to the pressure to reach an agreement before the upcoming EU elections. The final wording of the compromise text is not yet available, but according to the Council’s press release and the Parliament’s press release, the institutions reached the following agreement:
Some proposals that were too far-reaching from the point of view of the affected companies did not prevail in the trilogue negotiations. Overall, however, companies active in the production, sale or repair of goods will still be subject to a wide range of new obligations and liability risks to which they need to adapt their business models and processes. This includes, for instance, efficient repair logistics and contractual provisions in the supply and distribution chain to allocate responsibilities.
The provisional agreement still needs to be endorsed and formally adopted by both the Parliament and the Council before being published in the Official Journal and entering into force 20 days later. Even if the R2RD then still needs to be transposed to national law within 24 months, affected companies should already familiarise themselves with the new provisions to ensure compliance. We will keep you updated on the details of the R2RD and its implementation once further information becomes available.