New and sensible energy labels will help consumers

"The EU energy label creates clear added value and helps consumers find more energy-efficient products. And I’m satisfied that we are now able to find workable solutions on how we convert the energy labelling of today to the new system of energy labelling for tomorrow,” said Herbert Reul MEP after the adoption today in the European Parliament of the new energy labelling scheme for household appliances.

He considers that the text adopted today is therefore largely a good basis for the negotiations of the European Parliament with the EU Member States for finalisation of the legislative text.

“Our Group was able to make the rules simpler. There are now clear procedures and responsibilities for both manufacturers and dealers and appropriate timing has been laid as to when the old labels have to be replaced with the new energy labels,” Herbert Reul said, adding that the EPP Group had managed to avoid mandatory labelling of second-hand products.

"I regret that there was a majority in favour of making the energy efficiency label compulsory in visual advertisements. The media has complained for the right reasons, since this restricts advertisements and makes them more complicated and more expensive. For consumers there is hardly any added value when an energy label is shown for a short time on TV ads," Herbert Reul added.

Furthermore, a majority of the European Parliament supported the establishment of a new EU database of household appliances.

“It’s wrong to engage in such a huge IT project. The benefits of such a database in terms of market surveillance are largely trumped by the costs. Moreover, for the European household appliances industry, it is dramatic that highly-sensitive data will be collected at European level - one can only imagine how competitors could benefit by hacking into this database. I would have appreciated more understanding from those political groups that usually consider data protection as their core task,” said Herbert Reul.

“Luckily we were able to ensure that part of the highly-sensitive data remains on the manufacturers' local servers and is therefore not centralised in one place," he concludes.

The current system of energy labelling, where almost 90 percent of household appliances are within the top A+++ and A++ range has proved to be outdated. The labelling system will switch back to A-G labels and the thresholds for the different labels will be realigned.