The EU could give every European the #RightToRepair, but lobbyists will kill it unless take action!

The European Union is at risk of missing a historic opportunity to bring the right to repair into legislation for the first time.

From Monday 10 December all EU member states will be called to vote on a package of regulations requiring manufacturers to make consumer and industrial products more repairable and energy-efficient in order to be approved in the EU single market.

However, pressure from industry lobbying, especially in key countries with a big manufacturing sector like Germany, Italy and the UK, has severely reduced the repair provisions in the proposed legislation. The latest draft lacks ambition and significantly limits the potential to make repairing appliances easier for all.

Luckily, all is not lost. We (The Restart Project) are urging everyone to support citizen-driven campaigning, which is proving fruitful in some of the key countries opposing the regulation. A German petition promoted by repair activists has created a real stir, garnering over 109,000 signatures and resulting in the Ministry of Environment releasing an action plan stating its full support for repair provisions. And in Italy, a petition demanding that the country stops blocking promising regulation has reached over 76,000 signatures and will be handed over to the Minister of Environment this week by community repair group Restarters Milano. But in the UK a similar petition has been overshadowed by Brexit negotiations. Meanwhile local community repair activists have come up with the Manchester Declaration, calling for more repairable products.

Citizens want longer lasting and easier to repair products and they get frustrated when things break much earlier than they should. Read the rest