In order for the EU regulations to ensure a right to accessible and affordable repairs, a group of industry representatives such as AIRC, CLEPA, ECAR, FIGIEFA, Insurance Europe and SMEunited, issued a statement advocating for a clear, unambiguous, and immediately applicable EU Repair Clause.

The EC’s suggestions for amending the EU Design Directive and the EU Design Regulation are welcomed by the signatories, especially the inclusion of an EU-wide Repair Clause in the Design Directive. However, several other specific modifications are still needed for this right to repair to become a reality.

In Annex 1 of this publication, the signatories stated the main points with recommendations on how to deal with those points. To be more precise they stated that imposing a 10-year transition period on existing designs would create a considerable burden on society and that a shorter and more flexible transition of up to 3 years should be imposed. The second point was that the restriction of the Repair Clause to “form-dependent component parts” is unclear and unjustified, therefore keeping the original wording of the existing EU Design Directive and Regulations would be a more suitable solution. The final point stated in this statement is that unclear and redundant information requirements on “product design” must be avoided.