On Monday 6 February, the internal market and consumer protection committee (IMCO) at the European Parliament held its first exchange of views on the own initiative report by Pascal Durand (Greens/ EFA, France,). This was a lively exchange and focused on the life-cycle of consumer products.
Although the report obtained an overall very positive reception, the draft for labelling indicating the life cycle of products was subject to particularly lengthy debate.
Among his many proposals, the French environmentalist called on the European Commission to guarantee better information for the consumer about the introduction of the “European label”. This should have information about sustainability, eco-design and the modulation power of components, in an effort to “track the progress of the product and their reparability”. Similarly, the MEP also intends to introduce similar labelling for software.
Mr Durand’s proposal divided speakers among those who supported a liberal market and those advocating greater regulation. Unsurprisingly, Dita Charanzová (ALDE, Czech Republic) – the future “shadow rapporteur” for the Liberals and the chair of IMCO, Vicky Ford (ECR, United Kingdom), spoke against this proposal. Adam Szejnfeld (Poland), will negotiate the text on behalf of the EPP and did not take any explicit position on the question of labeling but did, however, reject the report as a whole and said publicly that he hoped it would never come to a vote and that it contained the kind of standardising vices one found in the Soviet Union and North Korea.
The labelling proposal, however, did receive positive support from the Social Democrats, such as Christel Schaldemose, from Denmark, Biljana Borzan from Croatia and even Liisa Jaakonsaari from Finland. The latter was the shadow rapporteur for the S&D group.
Holistic approach. Mr Durand’s approach was particularly based on an opinion from the European Economic and Social committee (CESE) in 2013 and during his speech, he highlighted the “holistic” character of his report that is broken down into a series of proposals to: improve product manufacturing conditions (strength, durability and quality); increasing their reparability; promoting an economic model geared towards use and “a function based economy”; improving consumer information; strengthening and increasing guarantees and combating built in software obsolescence.
Ms Schaldemose highlighted the example of Sweden, which reduced VAT rates on repaired products, in an effort to encourage their resale and use. The proposal had a certain resonance, particularly with German MEP Andreas Schwab (EPP).
Positive welcome. Practically everyone, except Mr Szejnfeld, welcomed the report, including Marco Zullo (EFDD, Italy) and Daniel Dalton (ECR, United Kingdom), who will be the two shadow rapporteur’s for their respective groups.
The deadline for submitting amendments has been set for Tuesday 14 February. (Original report in French by Pascal Hansens)