Introduction
Three months ago, I promised to come back on the European directive that will establish a European directory by the 31st of July 2027. For those of you that missed this sea change in the repair consumption of Europe, I recommend having a look on my previous article. To sum up the topic, let us just say that this act will force the creation of a broad repair center directory at national and European levels. It will include specific information such as prices, average duration of repairs and in the long run the quality.
At first glance, this seems like a great idea, largely supported by the Parliament. Only 15 MP abstained or rejected the directive. However I believe this is a broadening of the EU mandate with no real discussion on its appropriateness and this clearly raises legal questions.
Registries or directories ?
Listings managed by the EU are nothing new. There are BRIS (Business Registers Interconnection System), or Europages. BRIS provide official public data to be used by business to ease transborder transactions. Europages is a B2B search engine. Those typically lists names and contacts. Similar directories of business or professionals are often managed by governments and can be destined for consumers or businesses. One such example is l’Ordre des Médecins, provided by the French government. It serves the basic mandate to provide a clear access to regulated professions. The official term for these is registries.
On the other hand, the EU directive establishes another type of portal with more detailed information, linked to business practices, such as pricing rates, and opening hours. These listing are typically destined for consumers and provided by the private sector. From Google My Business to the Yellow Pages, these are directories.
Registries are public services, directories are not. Is it an issue for the EU to enter that business?
The issue
Directories are not considered a public service, even at national level. In France, not the least interventionist of European member states, there is the state-managed L’ordre des Médecins as a registry and Doctolib, a private company, as a directory to book appointments, exchange health data, and so on.
With this directive, the EU will be competing with real or potential private providers of services. I believe this is not within the EU mandate to fund initiative that could come from the private sector.
There are some instances where the EU does so. EURES, the EU’s platform for advertising job opportunities across the EU, functions similarly to private job sites. However, EURES comes from a clear mandate given by the EU charter to encourage transborder movement of EU citizens. This does not aim to become a market leader job search engine and it heavily relies on a network of state actors.
In this instance, there are no clear justifications for creating a public actor funded by taxpayers intervening in a private sector. There is no real case for developing transborder repairs. A repair technician is not a regulated job. There is not even academic training in most EU states. What does justify such an initiative? Should not it be left to the states to decide to administer such a directory?
In my opinion
Don’t get me wrong. I think that directories for repair centers are needed. More importantly, technicians should have a common and holistic academic training, following some norm and standards, to be compliant with personal data handling and overall safety. I think it is a blatant failure of our consumption society that most EU state members have no clear idea of how many repair technicians exist in their country are and how many will be needed.
So if the EU wants to create a directory of repair centers, let the EU make it a priority to train new technicians and regulate those jobs. Then perhaps a directory could be justified.
Emmanuel Benoit, CEO of Agoragroup.