Exchange between Mouvement Ecologique, Oekozenter Pafendall and the Minister for Consumer Protection
What consumer protection policy should be pursued? How should a national repair bonus be organised?
Recently, Mouvement Ecologique and Oekozenter Pafendall had an exchange with Minister Martine Hansen and representatives of the Directorate for Consumer Protection about the ministry’s role and the possible introduction of a national repair bonus.
The first point was a general exchange about the role of the Directorate for Consumer Protection in relation to other ministries. In the eyes of both organisations, the Directorate of Consumer Protection must become more involved in the decision-making processes of sectoral ministries in the future and actively speak up when dossiers are of cross-departmental importance for consumers. Examples of this would be the certification and quality system for food, the contamination of food with pesticides, etc. Above all, the Minister emphasised that consumer protection must be taken into account by the various ministries from the outset.
The central point of the discussion was the introduction of a national repair bonus. The idea is simple: the local authority or the state issues each person with a certain amount of money up to X euros per year for repair services and spare parts. This is intended to reduce repair costs and thus remove obstacles. As 27 Luxembourg municipalities have already introduced such a bonus, the Directorate of Consumer Protection, together with the Syvicol, conducted a survey of the municipalities on the subject and presented the results during the meeting.
According to the results, most of the municipalities that have not yet introduced a bonus are interested in doing so in the future. The municipalities that took part in the survey and have already introduced a bonus have a different approach when it comes to raising awareness of the repair bonus. However, in the eyes of the Mouvement Ecologique and the Oekozenter Pafendall, this is a very important point. A broad information campaign among businesses and citizens is indeed crucial for the success of the repair bonus.
For their part, Mouvement Ecologique and Oekozenter Pafendall made concrete suggestions to the Minister for the introduction of such a repair bonus: it should apply to every person in the household; criteria should be defined for items that can be repaired (so that obsolete appliances are not repaired. Specific suggestions were submitted to the Minister), etc. The Minister feared a heavy budgetary burden if the bonus were to apply to everyone and be used by everyone. According to the Mouvement Ecologique, this would not be the case in the short term. Furthermore, according to both organisations, the resulting positive economic effects should not be ignored (strengthening of regional activities). The Mouvement Ecologique and Oekozenter Pafendall also emphasised that the bonus should also apply to spare parts so that repair cafés – where the service is free for consumers, but the spare part has to be paid for – and self-repair are not disadvantaged. It would also make sense for the directorate to seek direct contact with the craft sector and labour initiatives from the social and solidarity economy.
Mouvement Ecologique and Oekozenter Pafendall pointed out that they, for their part, will approach the municipalities so that they can already set the tone at municipal level in anticipation of a national regulation – which will probably come in 2025 at the earliest. All relevant documents were made available to the Minister.
The final point raised was the fact that the “Reuse – Repair – Share” field of action is a cross-departmental challenge. However, there is currently still no clearly recognisable allocation of responsibilities between the ministries concerned, and it is not always known which ministry is in charge of the relevant dossiers. The Minister replied that there is currently already an inter ministerial working group that meets regularly on certain topics, but recognised that the management of the dossiers is not always clearly regulated. This is not least because the division of responsibilities at EU level, where numerous dossiers are regulated, is different to that of the Luxembourg government.
In conclusion, Mouvement Ecologique, the Oekozenter Pafendall and the Directorate of the Consumer Protection agreed to intensify this type of exchange in the future.
28.02.2024
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)