What can I do to prevent the control key from not working in the future?

Question

Background:
I bough an macbook pro about 1 year and 3 months ago and after 9 months of usage my control key stopped working for about an hour or two.This happened every time I turned on or awoke my mac from sleep (lid down).I sent it to an authorized apple service center and they replaced the keyboard.Everything was fine for about 4-5 months when the same thing happened again, ctrl key stopped working but this time not when turning on my mac but at random times and for random intervals.I sent it again to the service center but they told me that this time it won't be for free because my 1 year warranty has expired.I should mention that in European Union and Romania (the country where I am from and from which the mac was purchased) the law is that any electronics device sold has to come with at least 2 years of warranty.Apple seems to ingore this law.
Anyway, after long conversations with apple uk on the phone they agreed to pay for the keyboard but not for the labor which was 70 eur ($100).It's not much but my 2 year warranty should have covered it.The sad part is that I have no guarantee that it's indeed a keyboard error and not something else, this might happen again in 4 months and I doubt this time apple would agree paying for the keyboard (which is 150eur) ($215).
I should also mention that before calling apple uk I tried apple's romanian number (listed on their site) and it didn't work on the 3 phone networks that I've tried (2 fixed and one mobile) which led me to believe that apple support is in fact a big joke.
Suffice to say that I will no longer purchase any apple devices or software, I regret purchasing mac os x lion just a week ago, when I will no longer use it because I intend to sell all my apple gear (timecapsule, iphone4, macbook pro) and buy stuff from companies that value their customers and respect their contracts.
My questions are this:
1) why does apple ignore EU and Romanian law?
2) what can I do to prevent this from happening in the future
3) can I request that my macbook be more thoroughly inspected? I suspect the keyboard is not the main problem and it will soon happen again as it happened two times already.
4) can I do something for the repair labor charge to be waved? It is illegal in my country to ask for one in this scenario...

Answer 1

Everyone reading your posts here is just another MacBook Pro user. We're all volunteers, not Apple employees. No one here can speak for Apple.
In my personal opinion, buying Apple products in a country where Apple has no stores and no corporate presence is a risk that the buyer takes knowingly. I don't think it's a wise risk, and I don't recommend that anyone take it. A small percentage of the products sold anywhere are going to have problems, and it makes more sense to buy an inferior product that can at least be serviced locally than to buy a superior product that may have to be sent thousands of miles for repair if anything ever goes wrong with it.