Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Thanks to CTOnews.com netizen OC_Formula for the clue delivery! CTOnews.com, March 26 (Xinhua) the European Union recently passed a new maintenance rights bill that requires hardware manufacturers to provide maintenance services for up to 10 years, and the new bill also includes smartphones and tablets in the range of devices that must be easy to repair.

According to CTOnews.com, the new set of rules still needs to be negotiated between the European Parliament and member states before it can become law, and if passed, it will bring a lot of changes, according to CTOnews.com.

One of the provisions is to require companies that sell consumer goods in the EU to provide free repairs during the statutory warranty period (unless it is cheaper to replace damaged equipment).

In addition, the directive adds a set of rights to the maintainability of equipment outside the statutory warranty period, which the European Commission says will help make maintenance a better option than simply discarding damaged products.

Under the new out-of-warranty maintenance rules, companies that produce goods defined by the EU as affected by maintainability requirements (for example, household appliances, business computer hardware, and will include mobile phones and tablets) within five to ten years after purchase, if consumers require and maintenance is feasible, they are obliged to provide maintenance services.

Original equipment manufacturers (OEM) also need to tell consumers which products they are responsible for maintenance, and consumers can request a new maintenance information form from anyone who provides maintenance services to make prices and costs more transparent.

The out-of-warranty maintenance rules also provide for the creation of an online "maintenance matching platform" for EU consumers and call for the establishment of an European maintenance standard to "help consumers identify maintenance vendors committed to higher quality".

"maintenance is the key to ending the take-do-break-throw model, which is harmful to our planet, our health and our economy," said Frans Timmermans, executive vice president of the European Green Agreement. The European Green Agreement aims to make the entire EU carbon neutral by 2050.

In this regard, when the European Commission adopted its maintenance rights rules yesterday, it also proposed a set of anti-"green brainwashing" laws that would prohibit any green declaration of any product without evidence.

The European Commission cited the fact that 94 per cent of Europeans thought it was important to protect the environment, saying that its proposal covered any clear, voluntary statement related to the environmental impact, aspect or performance of the product or business itself. Any such claim, such as a laptop made of recycled plastic, needs to be independently verified and proved by scientific evidence.

The Alliance for maintenance Rights (R2R) said in a statement that while it welcomed the progress made in the EU's new maintainability rules, it "missed the opportunity to popularize maintenance rights."

Although the European Commission's rules focus on reducing waste by improving product maintainability, it does not address the maintenance burden or anti-maintenance behaviour. The organization believes that spare parts and maintenance costs can still be very expensive and difficult to obtain and are not cost-effective for ordinary consumers.

"We need a truly universal right to maintenance, including independent service providers, and give everyone access to reasonably priced spare parts, maintenance manuals and diagnostic tools," said Cristina Ganapini, R2R European coordinator.

Ganapini said that truly universal maintenance rights laws should include ensuring that repairs can be carried out by independent service providers and that spare parts, manuals and diagnostic tools are reasonably priced. Even if phones and tablets are included in maintainability requirements, the range of products it applies is still too narrow, she added.

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