Welcome to the European Parliamentary Research Service podcasts.

In this podcast, we'll talk about the Commission's plans to grant consumers a right to repair

in order to save costs for them and facilitate the development of a circular economy,

where we don't just throw away things that no longer work, but try to repair them first.

Stay with us.

How many times have you told yourself, couldn't be bothered to repair this? I'll just get a new one.

Truth is, even if 77% of European citizens say they would rather repair their devices rather

than replace them, many times we just opt for the easy option, which is to go back to the shop

and get a new one. Now, why is that?

Well, there are several reasons. Sometimes it's not so easy to find spare parts, or there aren't

any. A product may also be old and obsolete, so we think it's not worth investing in repairing it,

or we simply wouldn't know how or where to have it repaired. But repairing helps us save money

and protect the environment by using less materials and natural

resources, which means fewer greenhouse gas emissions and less waste.

That's right. And this is why the Commission wants to introduce an effective right to repair

for European consumers before the end of the year.

Under current EU rules, consumers have two years to get a faulty product repaired for free, but once the legal guarantee has expired, neither sellers nor manufacturers are required to repair it,

nor are manufacturers obliged to provide technical information, repair guidelines or spare parts to consumers.

Indeed. But new measures to guarantee the availability of spare parts, at least for a certain time,

and repair manuals have recently been introduced under the new generation of EU rules on eco-design for products such as washing machines,

dishwashers, fridges and televisions. Repair-related requirements are also present in the rules

on the EU eco-label, a voluntary labelling scheme of environmental excellence that has been

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