The European Parliament has this week voted to support the recommendations of the EU Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection on the "Right to Repair," including a system of mandatory labelling on consumer electronics to provide explicit information on the repairability and lifespan of products (via iFixit).
The motion will compel the EU Commission to "develop and introduce mandatory labeling, to provide clear, immediately visible and easy-to-understand information to consumers on the estimated lifetime and reparability of a product at the time of purchase." This includes a repair score, akin to the repairability scores assigned by iFixit, being clearly shown on goods at the point of purchase. France is already planning to roll out repairability ratings for smartphones, laptops, and other products from January 2021.
"By adopting this report, the European Parliament sent a clear message: harmonized mandatory labeling indicating durability and tackling premature obsolescence at EU level is the way forward," said French MEP David Cormand.
According to a recent EU survey of public opinion, 77 percent of EU citizens would rather repair their devices than replace them and 79 percent think that manufacturers should be legally obliged to facilitate the repair of digital devices or the replacement of their individual parts.
"We hope this will translate into swift action to bring a mandatory repairability score index for all electricals and electronic products sold across the EU, to help consumers to shop with confidence," said Ugo Vallauri, Co-Founder of the Restart Project and the European Right to Repair Campaign
Apple has repeatedly been criticized for disproportionate repair prices, such as the $79 fee to service the $99 HomePod mini, and arbitrary limits on repairs, such as barring repair of the iPhone 12's camera without access to Apple's proprietary cloud-linked System Configuration app.
Yesterday, the UK Parliament's Environmental Audit Committee published a report chastising Apple for contributing to a "throwaway culture" of "short-lived products."
The EU motion is likely to encourage a range of repair-friendly policies and product disclosures, but this will be contingent on the European Commission legislating to bring them into effect.
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Top Rated Comments
I find it absurd that a giant company like Apple has only a 1 year warranty.
I applaud the EU for this, lots of things are glued in now, nearly impossible to repair, and then there are absurd RAM prices, RAM should be removable and replaceable by the user.
This labelling thing is not new. We also have it, for instance, for energy efficiency ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_energy_label'), or for nutritional information ('https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutrition_facts_label'). What is wrong with this? You can choose to ignore them. You can choose to make more informed decisions.
The fact that you cannot imagine phones that are not the size of shoe boxes but still highly repairable shows that Apple's brainwashing has been successful.
What you probably do not understand is that repairability is not in the economic interests of companies like Apple, so of course they'll make you believe that modern phones and repairability are mutually exclusive when they aren't...
This isn't just targetted at Apple or phones - if I buy a new washing machine, I know that there's certain components that will probably wear out after a few years. Having this sort of information would mean I could choose a washing machine that I knew I could easily replace those parts on rather than end up with one with a sealed unit that cost more to replace than a new machine.