Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament paves the way for liberalising the market of vehicle spare parts in whole Europe

Brussels, 20 November 2007. The Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) of the European Parliament today made an important step forward to solve the long pending “spare parts” issue.

The Committee voted unanimously in favour of the Commission proposed Repairs Clause – as had done already prior to this the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs (ECON) and the Commit- tee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO). The JURI Committee followed the re- vised proposal of rapporteur Klaus-Heiner Lehne (PPE/DE) who achieved such broad consensus.

The Repairs Clause strikes a fair balance between intellectual property protection and the need for free competition, the creation and finalisation of a single market and consumer protection. The clause inter alia safeguards 260 million EU vehicle owners, say: consumers, from being subjected to a spare parts and repair monopoly.

ECAR Chairman Louis Shakinovsky welcomes this step forward: “For more than 16 years ECAR has accompanied this dossier and convincingly demonstrated that the Repairs Clause is legally, eco- nomically and socially the right solution. Today’s vote sends out a strong signal to the Council of Min- isters to join in and to adopt a solution that Europe so urgently needs and has awaited for so long”.

As a concession to the mighty car industry JURI - contrary to ECON and IMCO – decided to grant a “transition” period of 5 years for implementing the Repairs Clause in those Member States which cur- rently still provide for design protection of spare parts. “There is no good reason for that”, Mr. Shaki- novsky said, “because it would give vehicle makers an opportunity ‘to litigate competition to death’ during this interim phase which may make the Repairs Clause ineffective in practice when it eventu- ally comes into force”.

ECAR therefore requests both the European Parliament as a whole and the Council of Ministers to finally adopt the Repairs Clause without any further delay.

For more information, please contact
ECAR Coordination Secretariat, c/o FIGIEFA on +32 2 761 95 10 or at figiefa@figiefa.eu

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Established in 1993, the European Campaign for the Freedom of the Automotive Parts and Repair Market (ECAR) is an alliance of 10 independent EU organisations representing vehicle parts producers, distributors, independent repairers, the European motor insurance industry, a large cross section of small and medium-sized enterprises as well as the 260 million motoring consumers in the European Union. ECAR’s main objective is to promote free competition and to prevent vehicle makers from monopolising the vehicle spare parts market through abuse of design protection. For more information, visit www.ecar-eu.com.