CYIL vol. 15 (2024)

CYIL 15 ȍ2024Ȏ NEW PROǧSUSTAINABILITY CONSUMER PROTECTION DIRECTIVE … common online interface shall comply with the … and be available in all official Union languages.” An entire Article was added, Art. 13, imposing the promotion duty to states, i.e., “Member States shall take at least one measure promoting repair.” Well, even this cursory overview of the changes to the operative body of the prepared Repair Goods Directive revealed that, this time, the European Parliament is ready to go above and beyond the integration, internal single market, and sustainability-oriented endeavors by the internal pro-EU tandem, the European Commission and CJ EU. Plainly, the European Parliament made the original Proposal for a Repair Goods Directive not only more efficient, see the free and available European Repair Information Form (new Art. 4) and reasonable repair time and price (new Art. 5), but, as well, more effective, see the prohibition of artificial obstacles to repair (new Art. 5). In addition, the harmonized, if not unified, feature is to be boosted, because the entire system shall be promoted by the member states (new Art. 13) and using a platform with an online interface in all languages (new Art. 7). This testifies a lot to not only the European Parliament vision and preferences and EU consumer protection laws, as such, but as well about the aim of the current EU. If the European Commission appeared to take an audacious step with the four Proposals to significantly reform EU consumer protection law, resting on five pillars, then the European Parliament exceeded all expectations, at least regarding the Repair Goods Directive. Undoubtedly, the current European Commission and European Parliament wanted to cross the Rubicon and add a new Commandment to EU consumer law –“You shall repair”, as a positive and real obligation and not a mere illusory proclamation and manifestly the Council was not against it. In the context of the discussion about all six priorities of Political Guidelines, especially the European Green Deal, this might be overlooked, but, as a matter of fact, this new commandment has the potential to impact almost each and every European business and European consumer and, hopefully, to change international business and environment protection law. The rest is now up to the EU Members States, whether they will transpose this Directive, in particular this right to repair, and also upon the CJ EU and courts in the EU and their case law on the right to repair. Conclusions The EU motto is “ united in diversity ” and it looks like there is a strong systemic harmonization, if not unification, drive motivated by the demands of the effective, efficient, and legitimate single internal market, as well as of sustainability. Consumer protection law is undergoing a strong systematization by a set of proposals. In particular, the Proposal for a Repair Goods Directive was prepared by the European Commission as a multi-functional tool to support and boost sustainability, competitiveness, and consumer rights. Interestingly, it has been enjoying a general approval and its legislative process was marked by endeavors attempting to make it even more powerful and real. Provided the resulting Directive with the right to repair will become a truly enforced full harmonization directive, then the new commandment “You shall repair” will become an integral part of EU consumer protection law modernized by the famous quartet of Propositions from 2022 and 2023 and meeting the UN ambitions with SDGs. Indeed, if the EU and the EU Member States and their institutions, including courts, will have sufficient courage and the drive to interpret and

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