EU puts stakes in planned obsolescence

Planned obsolescence is an industrial strategy that limits the life cycle of an electronic device to a very specific and fairly short period. European Commissioner for the Internal Market Thierry Breton made an announcement regarding this very issue. The European Commission will present its proposal for a directive against planned obsolescence of electronic devices after the summer break. The main purpose of this choice is to safeguard the environment by actually limiting the periodic purchase of devices and therefore and waste.

The EU against planned obsolescence

On the very day of the universal charger deal, the European Commission kicked off a new campaign against Big Tech. Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market, announced during a press conference at the EU Parliament that there is already another target on the horizon:

"We are working on eco-design to prevent the planned obsolescence of smartphones and tablets. Some companies would like us to change our smartphones every three years. We understand them, butthat's not the consumers' point of view or even ours, in terms of taking care of the environment now."

Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market

Measures to be taken should include several points: reliability; ease of disassembly; incentives for repair; access to critical spare parts; and increased recycling. The purpose of this fight against the short life of smartphones is to ensure that consumers have a device that lasts well beyond three years and requires simple repair instead of replacement. Planned obsolescence is nothing more than an industrial strategy created so that the demand for electronic devices will never fail. We have become accustomed to buying smartphones whose performance, only after a couple of years, begins to deteriorate. Security updates are no longer released and the device becomes technologically old. However, it seems that the EU is taking steps to considerably reduce waste with the aim of safeguarding of the environment.