Right to Repair or Right to Repair: To curb e-waste and abusive practices by manufacturers to prevent users να επισκευάζουν τις συσκευές τους, η ΕΕ φέρεται να προετοιμάζει ένα νομοσχέδιο που θα νομιμοποιούσε το “δικαίωμα επισκευής” και θα υποχρέωνε τους πωλητές να σχεδιάζουν προϊόντα με μεγαλύτερη διάρκεια ζωής και ευκολότερη συντήρηση.
The upcoming bill is already being debated and supported by several EU MEPs, as well as support from organizations such as Greenpeace, which is constantly complaining about the current practices of major manufacturers.
Planned Disappointment or Planned Obsolescence
The term "planned depreciation" is used to describe products that were designed to malfunction shortly after the expiry of their warranty. Consumers are thus forced to constantly buy new ones.
Greenpeace reports that this practice, used for decades, has led to the accumulation of huge quantities of electronic waste that can not be managed in environmentally safe conditions.
Through its new legislation, the EU plans to impose new regulations on manufacturers wishing to place their appliances in Europe, such as best practice designing products that focus on longevity. One of the requirements of the law will be to manufacture products that are friendly to any repair.
What about "locked" products?
A first report of the EU outlining upcoming legislation (is available from here) purports to give users the legal right to repair their products in any store repair select.
Currently, manufacturers use lock devices to prevent customers from repairing or repairing products in unauthorized stores.
Large businesses such as Apple, phone makers, printer vendors, and others use legal contracts or software locks (DRMs) to create secondary financial flows from the repair and maintenance market.
The EU wants products that are backed up again
In addition to giving any EU citizen the legal right to repair their product anywhere they like without risking losing their warranty, the European Parliament also plans to require Companies to create products with "restorability".
By "repair friendly" the EU refers to products with spare parts that can be replaced when needed.
The EU argues that by replacing only the part of a non-functioning product will reduce the proportion of electronic waste produced each year.
The EU also argues that with the introduction of the new repair right legislation new jobs will be available on the repair market that has been lost since vendors began restraining repair work in selected stores or only within their own stores.
Currently, in the US, eleven states use similar laws that have been adopted after years of public debate and only for some markets, not for all the products that are in circulation.
Of course, large companies will try to fight this bill with nails and teeth, as their revenue will be reduced significantly.
So it is very likely that the EU's plan is overwhelmed by endless discussions, just as it did in the US.
