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Twelve months ago I described 2009 as a challenging year with new and revised legislation and ongoing debate about how to deal with climate change and energy use.
Well, 2010 started with an unusually bitter winter and went on to include a volcanic eruption and a general election, all of which had some impact on our industry. But in-between it was really business as usual with ongoing work on revising European Directives and more UK government consultations.
AMDEA continued to provide information for our members and we ran four more of our Member Briefings. One was on the RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) and WEEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) Directives with updates on progress and what we had been saying to the government. Another covered consumer affairs with a report on progress on the new Directive plus information about UK initiatives including a proposal for a Consumer Advocate and various Office of Fair Trading reviews. A more specialised topic was REACH – the European chemicals legislation and the requirements for our industry. Our last session dealt with Ecodesign and Energy Labelling – how they interact and how the recent revisions to the Framework Directives will affect our industry.
The reviews of the RoHS and WEEE Directives were making some progress as the year came to an end but the proposed Consumer Rights Directive was still being hotly debated with over 2,000 amendments under consideration. Full harmonisation for distance selling at least is still seen as achievable but there are various outstanding issues to resolve.
On a positive note we now have a revised Energy Labelling Framework Directive to go with the Ecodesign Framework Directive. And the implementing Regulations for both these have now been published for refrigerating appliances, washing machines, dishwashers and televisions.
You may remember that we were anticipating a new fridge label all through 2009 but the design for the new energy label was not agreed until May 2010. There was then a further delay because the Commission decided to hold off and publish four Regulations altogether – for fridges, washing machines, dishwashers and televisions. This is actually a good thing – we do envisage some logistical problems for retailers as new labels appear at different times for different products, so at least we will all know where we are with fridges, washing machines and dishwashers! Televisions, of course, have not had energy labels before so it will be interesting to see how many appear next year – manufacturers can voluntarily use the new labels now though they do not have to comply until the end of the year.
Several of the UK Government consultations that came our way last year related to waste – a revision of the UK’s WEEE Regulations and changes to waste policies in Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and England, though we also commented on proposals for the enforcement regime for ecodesign and energy labelling.
And in 2010 we continued our work on our ‘Time to Change’ campaign to encourage the early replacement of older appliances with new more energy-efficient models. This year’s competition to find the oldest working fridge produced another energy-guzzling model, dating from 1954 so we still have some way to go.
Work on international standards continued apace with key topics being product safety, performance and electromagnetic compatibility, not to mention testing standards to meet EU legislative requirements.
So what can we expect in 2011? Well, the new 20% VAT rate for one. Possibly some new consumer legislation – we are waiting for consultations on the proposed merger of the Office of Fair Trading and the Competition Commission into a new Competition and Markets Authority, plus the abolition of Consumer Focus and the transfer of the Consumer Direct helpline and website to Citizens Advice. And the Consumer Rights Directive may yet reach a compromise on which member states can agree.
The revised RoHS (Restriction of Hazardous Substances) Directive is likely to be published and will then need to be transposed into UK legislation – meaning another consultation.
It’s another exciting year ahead…
