The European Union’s General Court (ECJ), in a judgment delivered on Thursday 8 November (Case T-544/13), annulled the Regulation (665/2013) on the energy labelling of vacuum cleaners, since it does not provide for testing vacuum cleaners with the dust tank partially filled.
Since September 2014, all vacuum cleaners sold in the EU have been subject to energy labelling to ensure that consumers know their performance. The details of this labelling are specified in the above-mentioned Regulation which complements the Energy Efficiency Directive (2010/30).
Dyson, which manufactures bagless cyclonic vacuum cleaners, legally challenged the Regulation on the ground that the test adopted by the European Commission puts its products at a disadvantage, since the test is carried out on vacuum cleaners with an empty dust container.
In May 2017, the Court asked the Court of First Instance to reconsider this case (see EUROPE 11787), after a first appeal by the company had been rejected (see EUROPE 11429).
In today's judgment, the (ECJ) welcomes Dyson 's argument and cancels the regulation in question. In particular, it notes that the Directive aims to harmonise national measures concerning the information of end-users on energy consumption "during use" so that they can choose products with "better performance".
Consequently, in order not to disregard an essential element of the Directive, the Commission had an obligation to adopt a test method under conditions as close as possible to the actual conditions of use. This implies that the tank must be filled to a certain level, the Court concluded.
Wishing to analyse the implications of the judgment before deciding to retaliate by means of an appeal, a European Commission spokesperson noted on Thursday that the Court of First Instance "does not question the effectiveness of European energy efficiency policy in general or the important contribution it makes to achieving European objectives in this field". (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)