A critical assessment of the European Directive proposal on the common rules promoting the repair of goods

Abstract

The European Commission has recently approved a Directive proposal to promote repair. After review by theEuropean Parliament and Council, we can assess the policy measures in light of their intended objective. Our analysis shows that the Directive proposal fails to address the most importan barriers to repair – plannedobsolescence, availability of repair instructions and spare parts, economic incentives – while potentiallygenerating greater administrative burdens for independent repairers. The Directive consists mainly of information tools and proposes a closed, narrow version of the Right to Repair (R2R) that transfers the power over an expanding repair market to the manufacturers.