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

• The European directive promoting repair has been approved. • This directive fails to address the most fundamental barriers to repair. • No new tools have been provided to overcome barriers to repair. • Right-to-repair takes the form of the obligation to repair by the manufacturer. • There are no incentives to change the balance of power in the repair market. The European Commission has recently approved a Directive proposal to promote repair. After review by the European 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 important barriers to repair – planned obsolescence, availability of repair instructions and spare parts, economic incentives – while potentially generating 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.