Omnibus on energy products labelling

Practical information

• Composition of the study group
• Administrator / Assistant in charge: Alin Mituta / Sandra Roura Cano
• Contact

Background

The framework for energy and tyre labelling is currently reconsidered, as the implementation experience accumulated since Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 entered into force, and in particular since the launch of the European Product Registry for Energy Labelling (EPREL) in 2019, has exposed the limits of the original design. Since 2017 the retail landscape has shifted decisively, with online sales, installer-mediated offers and business-to-business channels now dominant, EPREL holding more than two million model entries, and digital product information becoming the natural medium for transparency. The current model, built on per-unit printed labels, one-size-fits-all delivery rules and complex transitions from old to rescaled labels, has produced cumulative obligations for suppliers, persistent non-compliance and weak market surveillance, especially online, compounded by unclear responsibilities along the distribution chain.

The aim of this initiative is to make the use of energy and tyre labels simpler, more digital and more reliably enforced through:

• greater flexibility in label delivery, allowing digital formats such as QR codes and electronic displays and removing the obligation to print a label for every individual unit, with printed labels still available to dealers on request,
• fully digital product information sheets and longer, more workable transition periods to sell existing stock of rescaled-label products,
• fuller use of EPREL, applying the "once only" principle, linking registry data to product passports and using the registry to identify products eligible for support schemes,
• clearer obligations across the distribution chain and, for tyres, removal of the requirement for vehicle dealers to display tyre labels when selling new cars, where buyers rarely choose the tyres.

The initiative takes the form of a single omnibus Regulation amending Regulation (EU) 2017/1369 and Regulation (EU) 2020/740, the twelfth in the Commission's simplification series, expected to save businesses and market surveillance authorities around €125 million per year over the next decade.