Empowering consumers and repair of goods

Organised by

• Department of Law

In the European Green Deal (December 2019), the European Commission announced that its New Circular Economy Plan would include initiatives in the fields of EU market and consumer law. Both the New Circular Economy Action Plan (March 2020) and the New Consumer Agenda (November 2020) planned four CE legislative proposals to make these fields of European private law more sustainable and circular: 1) a sustainable product initiative; 2) an initiative to empower consumers and enhance their participation in the circular economy; 3) a ‘right to repair’ initiative; 4) an initiative on substantiation of green claims. In this workshop, Bert Keirsbilck will present two new directives which aim to contribute to the ‘greening’ of European private law: Directive (EU) 2024/825 of 28 February 2024 amending Directives 2005/29/EC and 2011/83/EU as regards empowering consumers for the green transition and Directive (EU) 2024 on common rules promoting the repair of goods.

Bert Keirsbilck is a Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law and Criminology of KU Leuven. He lectures in Commercial Law, EU Law and European Economic Law in Brussels, Leuven and Kortrijk. He is a co-director of Consumer Competition Market (CCM). Bert is a co-author of Commercial Practices and Consumer Contracts (in Dutch) and a co-editor of the CCM series. He is a member of the editorial board of DAOR, DCCR and TEP and serves as a member of the Faculty's doctoral and culture committees (2020-2024). Recent research focuses on sustainable production and consumption, circular economy and servitisation.