Preliminary agreement on energy efficient buildings - to the benefit of the climate and your wallet

The European Parliament has reached a preliminary agreement with the Council on a revised Directive for Energy Performance of Buildings (EPBD).

"With this agreement, we are taking an important step in ensuring that our buildings contribute to a decarbonised and energy efficient economy - to the benefit of both the climate and the wallets of European citizens and businesses”, said Bendt Bendtsen MEP, Rapporteur of the revision.

The EPBD is the first of eight legislative files in the so-called Clean Energy Package, presented in November 2016, to reach agreement. The package is also an important element in the plans to establish an Energy Union in Europe.

"We spend more than 40% of European energy consumption in buildings, so it is obvious that we need a significant contribution from our buildings to become energy efficient in Europe, to live up to our COP21 commitments and to limit our energy imports in Europe", said Bendtsen.

The agreement includes an obligation for Member States to develop national long-term strategies for a highly energy efficient and decarbonised building stock and to provide access to financing tools, bringing private money to the market for energy efficiency renovations and thereby supporting renovations.

Bendtsen is particularly happy with the broad support by the Parliament colleagues involved in the negotiations: "In the negotiations, it proved crucial that we had a strong Parliament behind an ambitious line to boost energy efficiency renovations. By standing united, we achieved a clear commitment for Member States to deliver concrete actions and long-term planning, which will provide investors certainty of the framework.”

The revision also tackles other aspects related to the renovation of buildings, like support for a healthy indoor climate, safety, and the promotion of basic infrastructure for electro-mobility - assisting a transition towards cleaner mobility in Europe.

"We have agreed to use the Directive as a driver for rolling out infrastructure for electrical cars, but also made sure to safeguard the incentives to renovate, keeping the cost of electro-mobility at a reasonable level and limiting the burdens on our smaller households and SMEs", Bendt Bendtsen concluded.