Remarks by Commissioners Reynders and Sinkevičius on measures against misleading environmental claims and on the right to repair

Commissioner Didier Reynders

Je suis heureux d’être avec vous aujourd’hui pour vous présenter notre proposition visant à promouvoir la réparation.

Cette proposition est une contribution importante à l’un des objectifs du Pacte vert européen : la mise en place d’une économie circulaire par la promotion de la consommation durable.

With today’s proposal, we aim to address an issue which has significant consequences for the environment: the fact that consumers, in most cases, do not repair their products when they are defective or when they are not functional anymore.

But before explaining the details of the proposal, let me start with the objective.

As you know, sustainable consumption is one of the aims of the EU Green Deal.

One of the means to achieve sustainable consumption and a more circular economy is to use our products longer, by having them repaired when they break down, rather than throwing them out and buying new ones.

Cette proposition constitue le dernier élément qui vient compléter une série de mesures pour faire du “droit à la réparation” une réalité.

En effet, au cours des derniers mois, la Commission a adopté un ensemble d’initiatives pour rendre cet objectif possible :

D’abord, nous devions nous assurer qu’il y ait de plus en plus de produits réparables sur le marché. C’est ce que nous avons fait avec la proposition de Règlement sur l’éco-conception, ou l’éco-design des produits durables. Cette proposition a été présentée par Virginijus en mars de l’année dernière.

Ensuite, il était également important de permettre aux consommateurs de faire des choix durables sur base d’informations fiables.

C’est ce que nous avons voulu améliorer avec la proposition “Donner aux consommateurs les moyens d’agir pour la transition verte”, également adoptée en mars 2022.

Et finalement, avec la proposition de Directive sur les Green Claims, qui vous sera présentée dans quelques minutes par Virginijus.

Notre proposition est quelque sorte la dernière pièce du puzzle visant à assurer un accès à la réparation lors de la phase d’après-vente. Pour rendre la réparation plus facile, plus accessible, et plus attrayante.

Let me now explain to you how we are going to achieve this based on an example.

Think of a product that you use in your daily life, like a washing machine or a TV.

First option: Imagine it breaks down and suddenly stops working after a year, so within the 2-year legal guarantee period.

You have the right to ask the seller to mend the problem free of charge as you paid for a functioning washing machine.

With our initiative, we will require sellers to repair when the repair is actually cheaper or costs the same as replacement.

Second option: now imagine that the problem with your washing machine comes after the 2-year legal guarantee or is not covered by it because you damaged your product by accident.

In this scenario, our proposal also reinforces the right to repair outside of the legal guarantee by making it an easier and more accessible solution for consumers.

The rule will be clear: the producer will no longer be able to refuse to repair your washing machine, unless repairing it is technically impossible. In other words, the producers will be obliged to look into the repair options.

This obligation will apply to goods that are repairable by design in the EU. Such as a washing machine, dishwasher or TV and soon … also smartphones or tablets.

This obligation will apply to the goods that are directly covered by any repairability requirements under EU law, such as the rules on Ecodesign.

And we will continue to add more product groups to this list in the future, as we want Ecodesign products to become the norm.  You can therefore notice the strong interconnection between today’s proposal and the Ecodesign proposal.

Producers will also have to inform consumers about this obligation and availability of their repair services so that consumers know about their right.

The producers will therefore be obliged to repair a product, even if the consumers caused the damage themselves. For this reason, producers can charge a price for repair.

Note that the producer should only be exempted from the obligation to repair when repair is impossible, for example when the goods are damaged in a way that makes repair technically unfeasible.

Avec notre proposition, nous ouvrons aussi la porte au développement du secteur de la réparation, car les consommateurs ne seront pas obligés de se rendre uniquement chez le fabricant pour une réparation.

Ils pourront également s’adresser à des réparateurs indépendants et trouver d’autres services de réparation qui répondent mieux à leurs besoins ou proposent des options plus attrayantes.

Pour rendre cela possible, nous proposons de nouveaux outils :

• Une plateforme en ligne sera mise en place dans chaque État membre et permettra aux consommateurs de trouver les réparateurs et revendeurs de biens reconditionnés. Cette plateforme permettra également aux consommateurs de vendre ou de mettre à disposition leurs bien usés afin qu’ils soient rachetés par des entreprises de reconditionnement.
• Un Formulaire Européen d’Information sur la Réparation apportera de la transparence aux conditions et prix de réparation et facilitera la comparaison des services de réparation.
• La Commission développera aussi un standard de qualité pour les services de réparation, afin de fixer des critères de qualité minimum.

Aujourd’hui, nous éliminons donc les obstacles qui dissuadent encore beaucoup trop de consommateurs de faire réparer. Les obligations et les solutions que nous présentons avec ce texte permettront d’inverser la tendance.

Notre proposition répond aussi à une demande des consommateurs. En effet, dans un récent eurobaromètre, 77 % des Européens estimaient qu’il était de leur responsabilité personnelle d’agir pour limiter le changement climatique.

C’est pour cela que nous sommes convaincus que davantage de consommateurs choisiront de réparer leurs biens plutôt que d’en acheter des nouveaux.

Ce changement de paradigme sera bénéfique :

Pour l’environnement, car la réparation réduira les déchets, les émissions de gaz à effet de serre et l’utilisation de ressources ;

Pour les consommateurs, car la réparation permettra d’économiser en réduisant l’achat continu de nouveaux produits ;

Et pour les entreprises, car la proposition encouragera la concurrence et permettra la création d’emplois dans le secteur de la réparation.

Merci de votre attention. Je passe maintenant la parole à Virginijus.

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Commissioner Virginijus Sinkevičius

“checked against delivery”

Good morning everyone,

Today we propose a concrete way to protect consumers and businesses from greenwashing.

We as consumers can contribute a lot to the green transition, but only if we can trust that the products we buy and the services we use as green as they claim to be.

Many of us really want to be green, but in practice we find it very  hard.

Companies routinely use environmental claims to market their goods, and when consumers see those claims, it’s difficult to separate truth from fiction.

For example: I have seen jackets where on the label it’s written that they are made from recycled plastic bottles, but when you look closer only 1% is made from recycled bottles.

This is what we want to avoid.

More than half of the claims we see in the European market   are vague, misleading or even based on nothing at all.

This undermines trust, and penalises companies who are the ones really taking effective steps and making real efforts towards greater sustainability.

There are also too many different environmental labels, and this creates confusion. It also increases costs for companies operating on our single market.

So today, we’re acting on those unreliable labels and claims, we’re acting to strengthen the EU market for sustainable products, with new rules that will help businesses and consumers drive the green transition.

What we propose is a new regulatory framework.

We want consumers to get information that’s trustworthy, consistent and verifiable. We want  environmental labels that are more transparent and easier to understand.

And for companies, we’re improving legal certainty, and levelling the playing field on the internal market.

That will boost the competitiveness of economic operators who are striving to increase the environmental sustainability of their products and activities.

It also creates cost-saving opportunities for operators who trade across borders.

These are voluntary rules, so they only affect companies who wish to make green claims to consumers, and the schemes awarding environmental labels.

Let me explain what this will mean in practice.

If you make a claim, as a company, you will need to be able to prove that claim.

You will have to show that it’s based on science, and that it’s reliable.

You will have to be specific.

You will need to consider potential negative trade-offs between different environmental impacts.

And you will need to submit your claim for checks by accredited verifiers, to ensure it complies with the new directive.

And of course, you will need to communicate this information in a manner that’s clear and transparent.

Taken together, these actions should prevent misleading claims from reaching consumers.

They will also make life a lot easier for consumer protection authorities, once the claim appears on the market.

Two additional points.

I said there are too many environmental labels, so we are also proposing measures to stop this proliferation.

There are 230 environmental labels on the EU market – no wonder that consumers are confused. This proliferation also hinders sustainable businesses operating across borders and fragments our single market.

Under the new rules, we will only allow new public schemes that work at the EU level. We have to mobilise the resources we have, to work together on reliable, EU-level labels such as the EU Ecolabel.

If companies want to bring in a new private scheme, it will need to be better than the ones that are already in place.

There should be a place for labels that show exceptional performance on environmental sustainability, but only in well justified cases.

Lastly, we want to ensure that the proposal has teeth.

So it also requires Member States to set rules on dissuasive penalties, to improve compliance, and help consumers be the green consumers that they very often want to be.

We believe this proposal will bring about real change and will empower all people who truly want to choose products based on their reduced impact on our planet.

I would also like to highlight that this proposal on green claims in part of a bigger picture.

One year ago we presented the Ecodesign for sustainable products regulation, together with the proposals on construction products and empowering consumers in the green transition, as well as the textiles strategy.

In autumn, we proposed a second circular economy package, to address the challenges of packaging waste, bioplastics and carbon removals.

With this third package we are adopting this week, focusing on consumers, we make another big step in accelerating the transition.

I would like to say a few words about the great value of the right to repair initiative and the range of measures it proposes to promote the repair of products.

We see this initiative as an important part of sustainable product policy.

It goes hand in hand with the efforts to ensure that products are more reparable by design, under the current and future Ecodesign framework.

The link between the right to repair and Ecodesign that we establish is important: the wider the Ecodesign reparability requirements spread, the stronger the right to repair will grow.

And vice-versa, the stronger the right to repair grows, the greater the positive effects on integrating reparability at the design stage.

I am confident that when these initiatives are implemented on the ground, we will see a systemic change towards smarter consumption and production patterns.

I would like to close here, and I am very happy to take any questions you might have.

Thank you.